


Apocalypse Please

by Dynamystic



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Actual Kid Five, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Drug Themes, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death because Apocalypse, Codependency Ahoy, Gen, Now with actual editing!, Whump, slow burn happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-06-26 22:43:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 87,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dynamystic/pseuds/Dynamystic
Summary: The movement caught the older woman’s eye, her keen senses zooming in on the Girl’s quarry. The Handler nearly dropped her cigarette, “Don’t you dare, you promised.”And there was the Handler’s second mistake. Sloppy. No one told the Girl what to do.“Like you said,” She leaned over the man, very deceased, and reached out a feather light touch along the ash covered cheek, “Circumstances have changed.”_____On April 2nd, day two of the apocalypse, Klaus Hargreeves woke up.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Here's me rolling into a fandom six months late, on a unicycle, honking my clown nose. This is the start of a fic I've had rolling around in my head for a while, it's been a decade since I've had time to sit down and write and I still definitely do not have time but the fic won't leave me alone either way. 
> 
> This is a long one and I have been popping back to edit for clarity once in a while, forgive me, I get too eager to post. <3

### Prologue

The apocalypse occurred on April 1st.

It was a shame. It had been a beautiful day, scarred twice by the horrible excuse for a “holiday” then again by the end of all human life on earth. The pairing felt like an unnecessarily cruel twist. She supposed the end date could have been set before the holiday was even a twinkle in the first primate’s eye, but perhaps that was optimistic. The coincidence was more likely an intentional nudge by a certain organization. They always did have poor taste.

Had they bothered to consult her to begin with, she would have been against any holiday involvement at all. Now, in her quest to navigate through the rubble that used to be the single most populated city in the United States, the young girl simply wished that they had chosen any other one. Christmas, or preferably Halloween. She liked Halloween. Just once she would like to see a pop of color. She was so tired of grays and, unfortunately, as she stuck her small hand out from under her parasol to illustrate, the world was being slowly drowned in a rain of gray ash. 

Not her favorite apocalypse, by far.

It had its uses, she noted, looking down at where her shiny black Mary Janes bracketed a mysterious set of footprints. They were a single set, too big to be her own, that stretched far into the distance ahead of her. There should be no life here, let alone life capable of wearing shoes. She'd been following them for a while, just a small dark-haired girl in a white sundress on a mission. On a hunt.

The tracks had begun abruptly, confused, staggering lopes of movement up and down the street, tearing wide loops around what had once been a vibrant neighborhood of mixed intent, shops, theaters and community centers all vying for space. All now unified in their destruction. Eventually the steps calmed, slowing, methodically diverting here and there. They were taking things as they went, disturbing piles of debris and ransacking buildings. Miles later, a set of wheels joined the tracks, kindly carving out a path much easier for her to follow. 

After a near full day of chasing the Girl stopped, spinning her parasol contemplatively as an object caught her eye. She lowered down, skirt brushing the ground but leaving no trace in the soft ash. She hadn’t left a trace anywhere, behind her, the single pair of footprints were somehow still impossibly that: single. She scooped the item up for inspection, thin and jointed. A finger made of fiberglass, ending on one side with a rough break and the other with tasteful pink nail polish. 

“Well, now, aren’t you up bright and early. Commendable work ethic!” 

The voice jolted the Girl harsher than it should have, so absorbed in her expedition, but its owner was no mystery to her. The presence loomed behind her, her shadow stretching long next to her as the sun started making its final descent. She felt no inclination to turn, intentionally twirling her parasol as she stood, trying to scatter the collected ash onto the woman’s expensive black silk dress.

No luck, the dust stopped mid air with a short flick of the woman’s wrist on her briefcase. Time stopped everything but the two of them, the ashfall suspended in midair like the world was holding its breath.

The Girl stood to her full height, a good foot and a half shorter than the woman rounding to her front. “You’re not supposed to be here.” The Girl intoned bluntly.

The woman waved off the comment with her unoccupied hand, the other still firmly around her briefcase. “Just a courtesy call, don’t you fret.” 

“Is that so? I am in no need of courtesy.” She did not sugar her words like the woman did. The Girl did not deal in untruths, even in tone. The woman’s smile didn’t waver, though she reached up to tuck her black lace veil up into her silver hair. 

“We at the Commission live to serve,” The woman looked like she wanted to pinch the Girl’s cheek but thought better of it, instead choosing to tuck her arms demurely behind her back. 

It was meant to make her seem unassuming but the Girl knew the last thing you wanted from a woman like this was to not see what she was doing with her hands. “I’m just here confirming the job is done. I received a, shall we say, interesting report across my desk this morning.”

The Girl tipped her parasol up, peeking mulishly out from under the lacy rim then down at the footprints, “You don’t say.” 

The woman’s eyes joined her there, red lips thinning in their smile. She opted for silence.

It was short work to chase the tracks, made easier by the halting of time. The Girl had her own tricks but, to be honest, she had been in no hurry, a trait she usually shared with the woman keeping pace beside her. Usually, but not today. Now she looked… uneasy was not the correct word for her. The Handler never looked out of sorts, but she seemed eager. 

They caught up with the little red Happy Time wagon a few blocks ahead, loaded with useful objects: A map, canteen, a few drinks and snacks probably pulled from an upturned vending machine. Then one very unnecessary occupant: approximately 1/3 of a department store display mannequin. The Girl pulled the errant fiberglass finger from her skirt pocket to hold it up in comparison, appreciating the novelty of solving one puzzle but being given another. 

“Well shit,” The Handler laughed brightly, having skipped ahead, “We had been wondering where this kiddo went off to. Clever little thing.”

The Handler stood next to what could only be the owner of the mysterious footprints. He was small (taller than the Girl but she was not so petty as to notice that), dark-haired, suspended in mid-stagger away from a collection of dead bodies. Young and shocked. The Girl picked her way gracefully across the rubble to the closest body, curious. It was an unusually large man, buried under such a crush of brick and cement he was almost imperceptible. She ran a small finger over his brow, testing. He was empty. Just a husk, but something else pinged on her senses. 

“They are all Odd Ones,” she noted to herself, though the Handler (of course) had thought it was meant for her.

“You don’t know the half of it. I have to keep twice the staff on these ones and all the others. It’s killing my bottom line.” The Handler reached out and straightened the boy’s tie and collar, “Little Five here disappears into space and time 16 years ago, takes a few brief dips in the 2010s, and tries to go home now? Little late, kiddo.” She punctuated the words with a light tap to the unresponsive boy’s face and a glance back over at the Girl. The Handler clearly expected a laugh but the Girl did not oblige. 

“Right,” The Handler clapped her gloved hands together, “Well, mystery solved, I’ll just take this one and—” 

The Girl appeared next to her without a whisper of a sound, spearing her closed parasol between the Handler and the boy. 

“No.”

The layered mask of geniality slipped off the Handler’s face for a bare second, expression filled with a promise of violence before she remembered herself, “You can’t be serious.”

“That was not the agreement, Handler.” She withdrew the parasol slowly, trusting the threat to be a sufficient barrier between the boy and the older woman. The boy, the poor Odd boy. She turned to face him, he was dirty, scuffed, and bleeding, eyes full of horror. His soul was already beginning to hollow out, though she couldn’t tell how much of that damage was recent or caused by something before then. Either way, at this rate he’d be lucky to hold on to a piece of it by the time of his death. 

She didn’t bother to grace the handler with her attention when she continued, “This plane is mine for the next 30 years, you and yours have no jurisdiction.”

The Handler scoffed, “This,” She indicated the boy, “is a clerical error at most. Our monitoring department forgot to carry a few 1s. It’s just a quick correction and you’ll have another one for your pile--” 

“Do not test me, Eugenia.” Her gaze snapped up to the Handler’s, dark, bottomless, and terrifying. The Handler quieted but managed not to flinch, impressive. The Girl left her there, uncaring, attention caught on the boy’s line of sight. He seemed to have stumbled back from around a corner of only half demolished masonry. Given who was here, the Girl wondered…

“We at the Commission take our responsibilities very seriously if--” 

“You can have the boy after my time is up, if he is even still in need of correction. This world is as much of a death sentence as any of your assassins.“ The Girl was starting to enjoy stepping on the Handler’s toes. The Handler, for her part, held onto her grace more than her predecessor ever had. She’d chosen wisely to channel her aggravation into lighting a cigarette instead, setting her briefcase down under the shelter of her skirt. 

Poor woman, so close to what she thought she wanted, and perhaps she was twisted enough it actually was her true desire. The end of all things, the Girl mused as she made her way around the corner, it didn’t seem to be a thing to want as much as just a thing that was and always would be. 

The ruins gave way to reveal another body and, for the first time that day, the Girl cracked a smile.

He was hidden behind the remainder of a wall, and really, how vertical this building remained was a testament to its builders, given it was ground zero. The sun beat down on the husk, unforgiving, mercilessly trying to break him down as it did everything else. The Girl extended her parasol to shade his face. 

“Won’t this one just get in the way of your glorified clean up crew anyway?” The Handler groused around her cigarette, lighter struggling to spark as it always did in stopped time. She peeked back around to the woman prowling around in front of the boy, stilettos ringing out with menace, “Circumstances have changed, let me rectify it for you.”

The Handler was intent on her problem, staring. The Girl didn’t like the look, not that she liked many things this woman did. She was a genius, a magnificent puppet master, but there was nothing in her eyes. After she died, would she even pass into the Girl’s care or had the woman chipped away at her soul so thoroughly that there was nothing left to cross over? For now, she centered all of the force of that empty gaze on the child in front of her. Like her ownership of the boy was a foregone conclusion.

It was the smallest of errors the Handler made then, showing her want, because the boy did not belong to the Handler. The boy belonged to the Girl. All of them did, every soul, and she did not like to share. Impossibly, the wind stirred in frozen time, her world shifting in agreement. 

The movement caught the older woman’s eye, her keen senses zooming in on the body in front of her. It made the Handler nearly dropped her cigarette, “Don’t you dare, you promised he was done.”

And there: the Handler’s second mistake. Sloppy. No one told the Girl what to do. 

“Like you said,” She leaned out over the man, very deceased, and reached out a feather light touch along the ash covered cheek, “Circumstances have changed.”

The Handler pulled a long drag out of her cigarette, not even bothering to hide the sneer twisting her lips this time, “Anyone ever told you that you’re a little bitch?”

The Girl’s answering smile was beatific, “Many, many a time.”

***

On April 2nd, day two of the apocalypse, a significantly less beautiful day than the last, Klaus Hargreeves woke up. 


	2. Day 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the pain train, choo choo!

###  **Apocalypse: Day 1**

The probability of Five seeing the apocalypse was not zero, especially if their father was to be believed. They were seven children raised in the Church of the End of the World. The apocalypse dangled over their head like a boogeyman. Finish your studies, do your chores, run those laps or you will never be good enough to save everyone. Impossible, hyperbolic demands that Five grew wise to early. 

The apocalypse would not care if he knew cursive and it certainly didn’t care if the dishes were done or not. No, what was up for debate was whether the old man really believed it himself or if it was just another tool in the barbed belt of their education. Five, even at the wise age of 13, had yet to pin down an answer. Their father was too clever to use a fool idea like that unless it was possibly true, yet simultaneously and unnecessarily cagey about it. He minced no words about anything else. Why this?

The others were in similar stages of questioning, a rebellion never stated out loud so much as in meaningful looks and corner cutting on their chores. 

Even as it rankled him, Five accepted he might never know. It didn’t matter much anyway. Five had an insatiable need for knowledge and Reginald supplied, and as long as that arrangement stood, Five had been content to entertain his delusions. 

Now, looking up at a sky choked with smoke, Five felt only a sinking realization: Shit, Reginald Hargreeves had been right.

His body ached, his lungs burnt, time ironically coming unstuck as he wandered through streets so demolished they lost all meaning. He had no idea how much time passed since he’d staggered away from the burnt husk of the Umbrella Academy with no plan or direction.

He’d hoped it was isolated destruction, a cold comfort but it would have been something. He walked block after block, finding the same skeletons of buildings all the way to the edge of his vision. The city was just rebar, brick, stone, and ash, oh so much ash. It filled his lungs with every breath. 

_‘Number Five!’_ His father’s voice barked in his mind, _‘In a survival situation it is important to first establish your priorities!’_

Priorities. Right. Five blinked and tried to clear his eyes of the ash, casting a wide look around his surroundings. Food, water, shelter, information. 

The part of the city he was in was a particular mess, skyscrapers had toppled into one another and rained concrete, glass, and office supplies down on the streets below, turning the whole neighborhood into sloping dunes of unstable rubble. It was taking him far longer to navigate than he’d hoped, and for a fleeting second he considered just jumping to the other side but a rising nausea smothered that idea. Just the thought of using his powers was too much. 

He snagged a paper early on, stopping to read it in the middle of the wastes. It was a slow news day apparently, the front-page headline fawning over the weather. It gave him a date though: April 1st, 2019. He nearly threw the thing in a fire at that realization. 16 years… It was both too soon and too distant. He shoved all those thoughts in a box and buried them. It wasn’t the time.

How long it had been since the 1st was another question to consider. The fires were still burning, so Five couldn’t imagine it being very long, but where were all the people? Five wasn’t a stranger to corpses, especially since they had started going out on missions, but he’d never been so eager to find a dead body before. 

Had they evacuated? Every single soul in the city? It seemed unlikely. Cars were not clogging streets, though there were a large amount of wrecks with no occupants inside. Otherwise, it looked like a world going about its business on just another beautiful day.

Five held onto the mystery, it kept the yawning emptiness forming in his belly at an ignorable simmer. He needed more data. But first, ‘ _Priorities_ ,’ said the voice of his father. 

Food and water were easy to find once he got out of the worst of the chaos, especially after he took a crooked piece of rebar to a vending machine. The wagon was next, found overturned in an empty park, one of the little wheels still spinning in the wind. He rescued a map from a stack in an information kiosk. Low quality, but good enough for now, he’d hunt for a better one later. 

Some sort of department store proved particularly fruitful, a halfway collapsed behemoth only distinguishable by the single G remaining on its sign. He stumbled through the place, untethered. They had never been shopping in a store like this in his life, it was daunting. He had a sense he would have felt lost by the sheer choices even if the place had not looked like a bombed-out shell of its former glory. 

He’d already done the responsible thing, tossing a few canteens, a tin cooking set, lighters, and more water in the dusty wagon. Now he found himself in the remarkably intact snack aisles, staring sightlessly at the racks of candy, numb arms still depositing an entire shelf of jerky into the wagon. 

Without thought, he fumbled some Sour Patch Kids off the shelf, Allison’s favorite.

It was 2019, they’d be almost 30 now. Would they have found new favorites? He huffed at himself, thumbing the edge of the box. What was he hoping for? That he’d bring the others candy and they’d just forgive him? That the state of the Academy and the city had no bearing on their wellbeing, that they were all safe, vacationing in Hawaii, living their adult lives in peace?

He put the candy back.

The smallest sound tweaked his ear, rubble shifting perhaps, but it made Five notice a shape huddled just inside the shadow of the semi-collapsed roof. For a moment, Five swore he saw an arm, a figure shift. He vaulted over the candy display without the barest thought, throwing himself in the figure's direction. A friend, an enemy, an irradiated mutant monster, he’d take it over this barrage of nothing but wind and ash. 

The hope died in his chest, leaving Five to be angry he had conjured up the feeling at all. There, at his feet, was a mannequin, or less than half of one, lying in the remnants of her smashed sister mannequins. She was missing the entire lower portion of her body and an arm but Five admitted she had a certain admirable poise even in her current predicament. She was dedicated to her career. Her arm remained aloft, a tasteful bracelet with a $15 price tag dangling off her wrist, as if asking if he wanted to buy it. 

Five’s breath, previously locked in his throat, hissed out of him, hitching, and before he could control it, he bent over in uncontrollable laughter. 

Painted blue eyes stared up at him impassive, accusing. It only made him laugh harder. 

“So,” Five wheezed, waving a hand to indicate the other obliterated mannequins. The gesture a mockery of himself, of the situation, of everything, “guess you’re here alone too, huh?”

If his voice cracked, it was definitely from puberty or the lungs full of ash, not the solid lump that had risen as soon as the laughter had petered off. 

“You want to tell me what happened here?” He doubled down, asking in an exaggerated tone, like the reporters that used to clog the front steps to the Academy only last week or 16 years ago, depending on your perspective. 

The mannequin, predictably, was not available for comment.

***

He took her with him. 

***

The mannequin was actually a completely sane acquisition, Five assured himself. His powers had never been a simple A to B equation, requiring much more theory to work safely than any of the others in the Academy (though he was of the opinion that if Diego stopped chasing leadership and instead read a few physics books, he’d find his powers more satisfying). When learning, he always seemed to do his best thinking out loud to someone. The recipient didn’t even need to contribute, their presence alone helped him parse complicated topics. 

Classically, his first choice was Vanya. She was always eager to help, even when his rambling dragged on into the night, knowing what he was hoping for without having to ask. She let him tap away at a chalkboard while she practiced her song’s fingerings on the neck of her violin, chiming in soothingly when Five got too frustrated to continue. 

Ben was a valiant alternate, he could actually contribute most days, the only one of his brothers able to keep pace with Five on higher level math. Unfortunately, Ben’s dance card was often full. As their family’s remarkably competent peacekeeper, he had to run around the house to put out figurative and sometimes literal fires (Klaus, of course). This meant he was rarely up for Five’s late night study sessions, and Five didn’t challenge him on it. Not after he’d stumbled in on Ben crying so hard it couldn’t be muffled by the pillow he’d pressed to his own face.

Here in a world with no other humans, he had the mannequin. A cheap imitation, but useful, and he couldn’t imagine a scenario where he’d convince Vanya to double as a paperweight. 

“We’re here,” Five marked the tourist map, one side held down by the mannequin and the other with a filled canteen. He’d dotted the paper with dozens of similar marks as the sun grew lower in the sky, products of a clearer mind and a more methodical canvassing. “The buildings on either side here and here fell away on this axis, and they’re more flattened the farther I head in. That means I’m getting closer to ground zero.”

It was easily the riskiest goal on his list for information. It wasn’t a perfect match, but the destruction had certain characteristics that brought mushroom clouds to mind. Something he was familiar with. 

When they were 8, their father had sat them down for a lecture series on various disaster scenarios, projecting unedited footage so they wouldn’t flinch on actual missions. Floods, wars, earthquakes, and (unfortunately and fortunately) Nagasaki. They’d hadn’t made it through the whole reel, as Diego had run out of the room halfway through. It took Mom a few hours before she found him curled up in a crawlspace. They’d all been secretly grateful for that, Five’s muscles tensed at the memory even now, but he had seen enough to compare.

The destruction here had conflicting qualities. Other than the areas where a fire had broken out, the city was remarkably uncharred, for one. Then the missing people. If it had been a bomb, he couldn’t imagine the people dropping it would wait for an orderly evacuation. 

Across the entire day and a half he’d been here, he still hadn’t seen so much as a human hair. If he was at all religious (Five wasn’t) he’d say it was an act of god. Like some force had just swept a hand through the city and scooped everyone away. Ridiculous.

No, the one thing that kept him walking towards what seemed to be the center of the destruction was a fear and a hope all joined into one. Hope that he could get more information, something actionable. Fear that his family was not in Hawaii, because if his father had his way, his family would always be at the middle of something like this. 

The mannequin rattled noisily in the cart like the worst drumroll of all time. His destination closed in too quickly, the buildings scooping down low as if to bow to the swirled destruction at the center.

Then there, a glint. An eye. 

For a second before his conscience caught up to his senses, it relieved him to see the human hand holding the thing. The hand was in full rigor still, which narrowed down the timeline considerably. 

It also confirmed his non-nuclear hypothesis as any corpse at ground zero would be nothing more than a scorched shadow on the pavement. He prized the eye out of the literal death grip, cataloguing it as evidence in his mind, before curiously following the arm up to its owner. 

It all went pretty downhill from there. 

***

As the sun set behind the skeletal remains of the city, Five found himself sitting propped up against a wall, knobby-kneed legs stretched out in front of him, arms casually discarded on either side. He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, but a fine layer of ash had already settled on him. He should get up, the voice of his father was screaming at him to do so, that he was wasting precious time. 

He didn’t. He sat still, staring out dispassionately at the partially obscured bodies of his family, like an uninspired art exhibit worth no further commentary. 

His body ached from the abuse he’d put it through the last two days, his fingers numb and his lips tingling. He should probably breathe deeper.

Should he bury them?

His father’s voice was quick to reply, telling him it was a waste of energy, that maintaining a balance between energy output and caloric intake was key in survival situations. Herr Werner had also joined in and was orating the finer points of lean-to construction. He dismissed them, trying to see if his siblings’ voices would float to the surface with opinions on his current predicament. They were silent. Not a peep.

Five swallowed thickly. The small slip of the sky he could see between the storms, smoke, and ash was starting to purple. There was a dust storm (ash storm?) that was closing in, nearer than he had seen one yet. Shelter first, then.

After all, his family would still be dead tomorrow.

He stood back up on bloodless legs, hobbling back toward his childish little wagon but his steps faltered. His mind flooded with the images of the incoming winds burying his siblings in dust and dirt, the fine grit clogging their noses, marring their faces. Erasing them from reality.

He took a sharp right, first grabbing a knife off of what could only be Diego’s body, then towards a pile of rubble tangled with black velvety cloth. Drapes maybe. They were huge, heavy, and tangled in the rebar, but Five spent the next half hour hacking away until he had roughly five large pieces of material. 

Briefly he had convinced himself they were an unrelated group, but between the knives and tattoos he couldn’t fool himself for long. Really, it was amazing how easy most of them were to distinguish, adulthood had changed their faces but he could see the ghosts of how he knew them underneath. It only made the lost time hurt more. 

He covered each as best he could, gently tucking the cloth over his siblings forms one by one, weighing the cloth down with broken cement. Afterwards, he drove a length of rebar into the rubble over their heads in case the storm buried them so deep he couldn’t find them later. 

Luther, Allison, Diego first. He stopped there, eyeing the knives in consideration, but separating another one from their owner made that lump in his throat rise quickly and he didn’t have time for that. The next body was a mystery. They were completely devoid of any distinguishing characteristics, more resembling charcoal in a human shape than any living person. He worried even touching them might make them crumble and blow away. They were small and slight, Five noted clinically, the only thing he could do at the moment. Ben, maybe? He couldn’t guess with any accuracy but it felt right that Ben would be with them in that last moment. 

He tucked that form in with great care, wincing as he felt the shape give way under the heavy bulk of the drapes. 

Deeply exhausted, he noted the wind was picking up, but he was far too stubborn to stop. Five tried to heave a curtain piece up and over his last brother but his shaking arms didn’t have the strength anymore to give it much distance so it draped awkwardly. It meant Five had to climb up and lean over the corpse to pull it the rest of the way, thankfully too, as he never would have heard it over the wind otherwise. 

God, what if he hadn’t heard it?

A wheeze, a tiny, thready whistle, a noise that could have been mistaken for any number of things. Five whipped his head around, training his ear on it in disbelief, looking down at the still closed eyes below him. But there, where the head was lying on a rock, the dense dust in front of the man’s nose shifted ever so slightly, rhythmically. 

Klaus. 

Five wanted to scream the word, but it stuck firmly in his throat, too terrified to be made real. He fumbled at his pocket, face stern, and pulled Diego’s knife out again, pressing it carefully underneath Klaus’s nose. Fog bloomed on the blade’s flat side, and it was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. 

***

The dust storm loomed, practically on top of him as Five went into a flurry of motion. Voices crushed in, a childhood full of triage and first aid advice filling every crevice of his brain. Pulse, pupils, responsiveness. It took two tries and an angry pinch on his own arm to get Klaus’s name out but he did it, getting nothing in return other than a more pronounced wheeze. 

He knew distantly moving him was a terrible idea, but he had no other choice. He came back with a litter made of a mostly intact shipping pallet, rebar, and the cloth he’d intended to bury his brother in. He lashed the contraption to the wagon, thankful for the abundance of rope nearby. The transfer was a nightmare. He had to unpin Klaus’s right arm first as it was twisted awkwardly between two slabs of concrete too big for Five to move. He was lucky the arm wasn’t crushed entirely. The only option left was to carefully twist the undoubtedly broken arm and maneuver it out inch by inch. 

This was what woke him up. 

Halfway through the process, trying to find the best angle to pull from, Klaus lurched forward, trying to escape the pain but only wrenching himself out of Five’s grip. The good news was that the movement yanked his arm free with some long scrapes to show for it, the bad news was that the momentum pitched him over the edge of the pile of rubble he’d been laying on. Five had to do an instinctive spatial jump to catch him in time, taking the man’s entire weight on one shoulder. 

Klaus was desperately trying for air but could gain nothing more than a few sips between deep wracking coughs. 

“Come on, come on. You have to work with me here,” Five groused into Four’s ear, knowing he had no idea how to fix it if something was wrong with the man’s lungs. 

Klaus wheezed and shuddered in response, his body concentrating only on coughing up dry, dark particles. One or two caught Five’s attention, looking like little delicate trees made of dried blood. It was a violent but blessedly short process, then Klaus slackened against him. Back into unconsciousness as soon as he took in a half gulp of air, leaving Five to deal with the full brunt of his dead weight now on an exhausted boy half his size. 

A hysterical laugh bubbled out of Five, “Good to see you too, buddy.”

The storm was nearly on them, bits of dust turning sharp as the wind roared. Five didn’t have time for delicacy and simply let gravity do most of the work getting Klaus onto the litter. He’d just have to apologize later.

***

That night was full of terrors. 

He’d managed to pull Klaus arduously down the three flights of stairs into the subway station, having only the energy to tug them around the corner before he dropped into an exhausted heap next to the litter. 

The storm howled above, plumes of dust drifting down the stairs, the clouds blotting out the small amount of light left. Five had wanted to run another check on Klaus, but his arms wouldn’t move and the tremors in his fingers were so pronounced they were tapping a rhythm on the grungy subway floor. 

Five drifted in and out of sleep until the line between the two disappeared. The night had dropped the underground tunnel into the deepest dark, and the wind screamed so loud he was effectively deaf. He was sure his eyes were open sometimes, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t hear. Eventually he wasn’t even sure the pressure of the floor on his back was there anymore, floating in a formless void, helpless. 

If he cried that night he couldn’t hear it either, but he felt like he did. 

He was trapped alone, at the end of the world, in a sea of screams with nothing but his own mistakes audible in his head. For all he knew Klaus was slowly dying next to him, he couldn’t even hear his breathing anymore. 

His father chose that moment to make an unfortunate reprise, whispering how time travel might influence his mind. What if none of this was real? Or worse, what if it was and his mind’s twisted sense of irony had conjured Klaus’s ghost as a kindness? What if tomorrow morning the sun rose to reveal he’s just strapped another mannequin to a piece of wood?

Five’s muscles screamed at him as he rolled over, lurching across the tile to where he thought he’d left the litter. For a terrifying few swipes of his arm, he found nothing, panic pushing his arms into wide sweeps. He refused to plead, or at least he hoped he didn’t, reaching inches farther until his finger banged painfully against splintered wood. He didn’t care. He pulled himself up to a sleeve, a shoulder, then across until he felt the rise and fall of Klaus’s chest, the faintest thump of a heart. 

Blind, deaf, and dumb, but not alone, Five fell asleep.


	3. Day 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for some medical grossness relating to blisters. You'll see it comin'.

### Apocalypse: Day 3

The storm was gone before dawn, not that Five witnessed it. Physical and mental exhaustion kept him deep into sleep until late morning, stealing precious daylight. 

Dust and debris had spilled halfway down the subway, clogging the platform by half, but sunlight was filtering down enough it gave Five a decent amount of light to work with. When he’d chosen this place to shelter yesterday from the storm he had picked it as a single person with no intention of staying there indefinitely. The darkness was a huge problem, and the sprinkler system he could see above made lighting a fire a dubious endeavor. He had no way of knowing if it was pressurized still and while the station could definitely use a good wash, he had no urge to be flooded out during the night. 

He was stuck here. There would be no moving Klaus until the man could help move himself. He knew the light wouldn’t last, so he had to take advantage of it while he could. 

The layabout in question was still unresponsive, but to Five’s inexpert ear, his breathing seemed to have eased overnight. He checked what he could check in the moment with the little resources he had. Their medical training had been solely focused on stabilizing and readying a civilian for transport, anything past that was only vague theory to him. It was a lack of knowledge that burned hotly right now. 

He did at least want to look at the broken arm, but the thick velvet coat was in the way, so he took Diego’s knife and pulled it apart at the shoulder seam, able then to tug the sleeve gently off. Most of Four’s arm was a mess and, after pulling the world’s thinnest t-shirt up, he could see it continued all the way down his torso. A war zone of bruises, swelling, and abrasions. The last had been mostly Five’s fault, earned when he dragged Klaus off the mountain of concrete he’d been trying to die on. Most troubling was a gathering of dark bruises along the sides of his stomach, which had the heart rate spiking in Five’s own chest. 

It brought to mind scary words like ‘internal bleeding’. Words he was in no way equipped to deal with. The only thing keeping Five calm was that Klaus had survived the night with no intervention. Maybe that meant they were out of the woods? Perhaps. How long could someone survive with something like that? Without surgery? He’d checked yesterday, all power and phones in the city were down, so even if help was in reach, he had no means to contact them.

Priorities, his brain whispered.

Five sat back on his heels and weighed his options. He needed more information and more supplies. He’d seen a twisted sign indicating a hospital nearby. God knew what shape it was in, but it should at least be outside of the innermost rings of destruction. With the limited daylight left, it was his best shot.

He stood, hissing as he put all his weight on his feet. His socks and shoes were full little shards of debris and it felt like a colony of blisters had risen on his feet overnight. He didn’t even bother to knock his shoes out, he didn’t want to see the state of his feet and they’d just fill up again as soon as he got outside. He did make some other alterations for the constant rain of ash and dust, shrugging his sweater vest up like a scarf around his neck to keep the worst of it out of his nose and mouth.

Water and a bit of food tucked into his little red wagon, he was the most prepared he would ever be. A thought occurred to him, though. What if Klaus woke up while he was gone? Woke up all alone in the apocalypse? In his rampant looting he hadn’t stopped to grab a writing utensil or any other way to leave a note but… he pulled Diego’s knife out again speculatively and approached a wall.

***

Klaus did wake up. 

It was not the first time he’d come out of unconsciousness on the floor of a busy subway station and, if he was being honest with himself, probably not the last. Nice of the MTA to mind their own damn business for once though, especially when he felt like such shit. He cracked open an eye, well, he had attempted to open both but one seemed to be swollen shut. That was fine, he didn’t want to use both of his eyes to witness the creepy mannequin staring him dead in the face anyway. Half mannequin, rather. 

Hairless, armless, in all her polka dotted glory, he swore the thing was judging him. Rude. He bared his teeth at her to show what he felt about that to no response. Her one arm was raised up, pointing at the ad in the wall above her like she was goddamn Vanna White. It was for a watch company, a racially ambiguous, friendly looking model stared out, beaming in pride as if wearing four watches was a normal thing to do. 

Well, he was sure she was supposed to be friendly looking, but it was hard to distinguish as words had been carved deeply into her face:

“DON’T PANIC.” 

Klaus couldn’t summon the energy to laugh, but a tiny huff of air escaped him. It looked like a message a serial killer would leave over the body of their newest victim. Wait. It was over him. He wasn’t dead was he? 

Four tried to move to confirm and his whole body screamed at him. So, no moving then. The pain lapped at his consciousness like an incoming tide, black spots obscuring the poster. There was more writing gouged into the wall, hard to read between the pain and the noisiest damn train station. Christ, had these people never heard of inside voices? Couldn’t they tell he and his serial killer friend were trying to have a conversation? 

He tilted his head to the right as much as he could, that eye still swollen shut so he couldn’t see much more than a blurry crush of people milling around the turnstiles.

His first attempt at speaking was an undignified squawk, but the next attempt actually got enough air into his lungs to give the words some power. 

“Fuck! Shuddup!” His ribs ground together as he filled his lungs again, bolts of pain shooting up and down his body, but it seemed worth it as everyone on the platform hushed immediately. Nice.

Now what was he doing? Right. He turned ever so slightly back, his heartbeat a vivid thump in his fingertips, the tide of pain coming up over his nose to reclaim him into unconsciousness. 

The wall read: “BE BACK SOON - 5”. 

Aw, that was sweet, serial killer person. Klaus hummed as the world faded to nothing. 

Around the now blissfully unaware man, every figure on the platform slowly turned to face him. 

***

It took three trips to ferry everything down the flights of stairs into the dim station, but Five was pleased with his haul. 

“I’m back!” He called hopefully as he pulled the sweater vest off his face and tried to shake most of the ash out of it. He didn’t get a response, but he could see the rise and fall of Klaus’s chest as he dropped a bright red EMS bag down next to the makeshift bed. It was brimming with all the favorites and one of everything he could get his hands on in the emergency room. A stethoscope, manual blood pressure cuff, all the medication not locked behind bullet proof glass, various tools still in their sterile packaging, and even a portable defibrillator that still held a charge.

It was the smoothest anything had gone and it still gave him time to make a few other stops. This lead to his other favorite acquisitions, nestled in the wagon with some hospital blankets, was one of every three-wick candle in Bath & Body Works. He had no idea what the combination of subway funk and “Martini Dreamin’” would smell like together but it sure as hell wouldn’t be pitch dark on the platform tonight. 

As soon as he stacked his haul into some semblance of organization, he dropped down cross legged next to his still unconscious brother. Nurse Mannequin was still valiantly holding vigil where he’d left her. “I honestly didn’t know which you’d hate more. Waking up with no one or waking up with a mannequin hanging over you,” He shrugged down at his brother, “So I just did what I would have wanted.”

Five eased his shoes off, a piece of jerky dangling from his teeth. It wasn’t easy, his feet having swollen significantly across the day, and he wasn’t looking forward to the reveal. Best to finish his food before the next part.

“Be glad you’re not awake for this,” He tossed a look at Number Four, lining up his shoes behind his back before rolling off the socks. They stuck to the soles of his feet, the fibers fused with the popped blisters, “This is gross even for your tastes.” 

A sharp tug and a hiss and the sock was free, he didn’t look at the carnage yet, not until he repeated the same to his other foot. 

He leaned over from his sitting position, hauling the medical bag over by the tip of his finger and fished out some gauze and tape. 

“Remember the time you ate a cricket on a dare?” Five asked with a forced conversational tone as he cleaned and dressed his feet the best he could manage, memories a distraction, “Maybe you don’t, it’s been… 19 years for you? Vanya was so angry with all of you. She made you spit it out and it hopped away like nothing had happened.”

He wrapped a generous layer of sterile cloth around his feet and taped it off, mouth twitching up at the memory. Maybe Vanya was alive too? Somewhere out there. He could imagine it easy. The two of them had been talking about schools before he’d left, like real person schools where normal people went. Five was just so eager to not have to rely on his father as his only source of information, Vanya just wanted to be anywhere else. He’d told her just last week in a fit of frustration that they should just leave, stow away on the jet the next time Allison flew to the west coast for a gig. They could pretend to be orphaned child geniuses, and they’d let them into a school out there, he’d concentrate on physics and she on her music. They’d be lauded, become independently wealthy within the year and kidnap the rest of their siblings back to their big house on the beach. 

The whole thought exercise had become so ridiculous that, even though Five had started it in a rage, he and Vanya ended it in desperately muffled laughter. Vanya always enjoyed the fantasy of it all, but she’d grow nervous anytime Five started bringing any serious suggestions into the mix. He could still vividly recall her panicked eyes a few days ago, her begging him not to start this fight with Reginald, but he’d thought he knew better.

He always thought he knew better.

“I bet she’s a famous musician,” He mused aloud, attention having drifted off to nothing. He caught himself, snapping a look over to the mannequin who was still proudly pointing to the words “DON’T PANIC” above her. It. Whatever.

He shook off the train of thought, wiggling his toes to test out the pain level before wedging them back in his shoes, leaving them untied to help with the swelling. He figured it was better in the dusty shoes than walking around on subway tile that had looked like it’d seen the apocalypse years ago and every day since.

He sat up on his knees pulling the medical bag with him, peering down at the sleeping Number Four. He folded down the shredded black velvet curtain he’d tucked under Klaus’s chin and pushed the t-shirt back up. His whole torso still looked like a mess but Five was pleased to see there wasn’t new bruising. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t quite the horror show that had been looming in the back of his mind all day. Had he misremembered or had the panic made it look worse than it was?

“Right,” he pinched his lips into a line, nodding at the unconscious form, “Don’t move.” For the first time in his life Klaus complied without a fuss.

He wiggled his most prized new possession out of the medical bag, a little pocket handbook guide he’d found in the ER’s nurse station. A quick flip through had shown him dense, concise text on how to handle a variety of situations, with other helpful notes scrawled in the margins by the guide’s previous owner. A freaking wealth of knowledge. He used the new resources to get a more accurate, but still inexpert idea of what was going on. Cross referencing blood pressure, temperature, heart rate to the little book, his own scribbled notes joining the others. 

None of his findings were great, according to the book, but the additional steps suggested were not available to him at the moment. So instead of dwelling on something he couldn’t change, he moved on to cleaning and dressing the injuries he could find, eyeing the abrasions and the broken arm. 

“Oh wait, you’ll like this,” Five shuffled on his knees to grab something from the other side of his haul, coming back with a radio. The crackle of the speakers was nirvana as he hit the on switch, he’d tested out the batteries before but he wasn’t taking anything as a given these days. He did a quick flip through the AM and FM stations but they were disappointingly filled with nothing but static, not even a numbers station. He did know he’d seen a cassette tape in the deck. He popped it open for a look and sighed. He would take it. He hit play.

Five started working to the tune of ABBA’s greatest hits. 

Most of the work was simple, just clearing out dirt and concrete from scrapes and minor cuts, then dress them so the subway funk would have at least one barrier to gleeful infection. Between the repetitive motions and the woman crooning about Fernando, Five found himself sinking down to a near meditative state. 

He wondered who this Klaus had become in the 16 odd year difference between them? He had some indicators, nicotine stains on his fingers for one, though that wasn’t a revelation. He and Allison were fooling no one with their secret attic smoking spot. The new tattoos were interesting, the words HELLO and GOOD BYE on his palms somewhat visible under the grime. Five had to scoff out a laugh at those. Klaus never treated his powers as anything more than a joke, making himself a living Ouija Board was the next logical step, he supposed. 

Growing up, Five almost always interacted with Klaus mid or closely post-chaos. The other boy had been an agent of it, constantly testing the limits of every rule in the household. So much so that, on the few times Klaus was away for whatever reasons his father deemed fit, the house was almost depressingly still. As long as Klaus’s antics didn’t disrupt him personally, Five enjoyed their presence for the entertainment value and for the smokescreen it pulled over his own blatant rebellion. 

If Five kept his own rebellion three notches below the level of the most recent Klaus escapade, he could break rules left and right with very little retribution. Next to Four, he looked like a perfectly obedient child. As a matter of fact, more than once, Five had asked Klaus to be particularly active on certain days so Five could sneak to places he was not allowed to go, and the other boy had always been eager to help. 

They’d never been the closest, not like he’d been with Vanya and Ben, but Five had a distant respect for Klaus. Aside from the utility of it all, Klaus seemed to be the only other sibling who had no interest in the broken system of their household. This imposed militaristic hierarchy, the constant pressure to prepare, to improve not by small amounts but by bounds or they’d all perish. Four was never interested in leadership, never reverent to their Father, and never succumbed to the dour seriousness the others were bogged down with. Klaus, like Five, had come to realize that the urgency and the competition was manufactured and useless. They could take what they wanted from the system and do whatever they wanted with the rest.

Unfortunately, Klaus seemed to want nothing from the system but attention. Not wanting to explore something as fascinating as Klaus’s powers baffled Five, he’d been meaning to ask him about it sometime, but well… He’d accidentally abandoned all of them instead... 

By the time Waterloo wound down and the cassette player clicked to the end of the first side, Five was nearly done splinting the broken arm. Trying to wrap the swollen limb as tightly as possible without jostling it required some finesse, but Five managed. Afterwards he allowed himself to sit back down against the wall to finish his dinner of bottled water and hickory jerky.

“Wake up soon, idiot.” Five hissed at his brother with all the love in the world.

***

He lit the candles that night to keep the crush of nothingness from coming back, but traded that in for a headache inspired by the combo of Tahiti Dreamin’ and Sweater Weather. The wind had stopped that night, leaving only an unnatural stillness in a city which had only known activity. Every little pop and groan of the demolished buildings above snapped him to attention, making sleep only possible in small patches. 

It was for the best, as in the deepest dark of the night, another sound drew his attention. A hard to identify shushing noise. Five sat up, tilting his head toward the sound. He quickly noticed the breeze from the tunnels must have blown out Sweater Weather. He fumbled for the lighter and sparked the three wicks back to life where it sat between himself and the shipping pallet his brother had been laying on for two days now. 

His brother who was awake. 

Fuck. Klaus was awake and whispering to himself. Number Four’s eyes were pinched shut, his good arm weakly grasping at the side of his head. A million medical horrors came to mind, and Five lunged for the little nurse’s book like a talisman, already flipping through before the words started making sense. They were heavily slurred, with no power behind them at all, but he could just make them out. 

“Shutupshutupshutupshutup.”

Five shifted up onto the palette, “Klaus?”

The man cringed harder, mistakenly trying to bring his broken arm up to cover his other ear, before the pain of the action stopped him. 

“Don’t move, you’re still beat to hell.” Five shifted to reach out but didn’t know what to do, every time he talked, Klaus seemed to try to turn farther from him, looking like he wanted to roll over onto his strained shoulder, “Shit, Klaus, look at me.”

After a shuddering breath, the barest gleam could be seen under an eyelash, the briefest acquiescence before he clamped down again and his muttering found new strength, “No, no, I can’t— Not you too. Please all of you, I’m sorry, I said I was sorry. I— just leave me alone.” 

Five sat back on his heels, a sudden realization making goosebumps flood over him. He looked up, eyes darting around the empty platform, the few candles only chipped maybe 10 feet into the pitch black, but Five was not stupid, he had an idea what was happening. 

Klaus tried again to move his broken arm, but the splint kept it from bending, so Five did the only thing he could think to do. He leaned forward and clamped his own hands over the man’s ears, one hand over Klaus’s own, pressing down so hard it must be uncomfortable.

He felt instantly stupid, was this even helping? Do ghost voices obey physics? But he couldn’t help but think of the previous night, stuck in the dark with the endless screaming wind, helpless, and Five kept his hands firmly where they were. 

Klaus had tensed instantly, eyes popping open but not directed at Five yet. Ever so slowly they tracked up to the small figure balanced awkwardly over him, the fingers of his one hand flexing, seeming to test the presence of Five’s hand on top of it. 

Number Four attempted to speak several times, words forming before dropping away, eyebrows pinching in confusion, until he finally seemed to settle on a choice.

“Am I dead?” He croaked thickly. Five wasn’t about to lift his hands to let Klaus hear him better, so he instead just shook his head resolutely, squashing the logical voice in the back of his head that thought about the little medical book and how many ways his health could turn on a dime. 

Klaus seemed to take that in, eyelids shuttering but not blinking entirely, “… Are you dead?”

Five scoffed, shaking his head again. “Please, as if I’d die that easy.”

Klaus seemed to melt, easing a shaking hand out from under Five’s to hide his face. Dutifully, or really because he didn’t know what else to do, Five resealed his small hands over Klaus’s ears, helplessly trying to block out the sounds of beings who may or may not be there and who he would never be able to see.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus muttered wetly after a moment, eyes covered by his hand, “I’m so damn sorry.”

Five didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. They sat like that until the candles blew out again and eventually took their wakefulness with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baby Five is fun but hard to write, he isn’t yet the callous serial murder he may still become but he is definitely a snarky little shit. Trying to figure out how much of the attitude was there pre and post apocalypse has been a puzzle. Hope you like!


	4. Day 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are really nice, until they aren't.

### Apocalypse: Day 10

  


The Olympia Mall had been a gross eyesore on the city since its first opening before the turn of the century. Gaudy, dripping in the most cutting edge 90s decor available at the time, and never touched again even though it stayed open until the end of the world. Somehow, Five assumed tourists were to blame. Tourists were to blame for everything wrong in the city. Worse yet, it was still mostly standing.

The blast had caved in one wing of the mall and set the food court on fire for a solid week, a flame which was still smoldering and primed to reignite unless a good rainstorm came through. Everything else was remarkably untouched, well, besides the glass. Every piece of glass, including the expansive skylights had been reduced to extremely sharp confetti. 

Upside! It left everything extremely accessible, which Five appreciated as he was currently trying to wiggle a long shiny black rifle out of a security display case. It had a locked bar holding it in place but it wasn’t meant to hold up to much abuse and he was extremely stubborn. He planted both his feet on the shelf and turned the thing, popping it out with enough force to almost knock him on his ass.

Eager, he flipped it around to admire his prize, or well, tried do. An incessant mechanical whir was trying to steal his attention away, rising in volume as it got closer and closer. Five dashed a look in the security mirror and sighed, refusing to turn around even as the sound ceased with a squeaky pinch of brakes right outside the Cabela’s outlet he was currently casing, begging for attention. Petulantly, Five just flipped the cap up on the scope instead.

HONK HONK. Five nearly fumbled the gun with the instinct to cover his ears, and he whipped around. 

Klaus sat on a mobility scooter, a cheap plastic crown on top of his head, wearing sunglasses that did nothing to hide the look of surprise on his face. 

“Oh shit,” Four laughed, “I guess this thing does have a horn. Why would it have a horn? That’s way too loud to be indoors, wait though, it can make a worse noise.” He flipped the thing in reverse and slowly backed up, the little scooter making a string of loud shrill beeps until he stopped. 

Five watched his brother entertain himself with only a strong pinch of his eyebrows, not dignifying anything that was happening with a comment. He had been, perhaps stunned wasn’t accurate, but bemused to find that his brother, in the over _16 years_ they’d been apart, had somehow not grown up at all. It had been the most bizarre realization when he’d come to terms with it, and everyday since, he’d been swamped by this overwhelming exasperation spiced with _relief_ for some reason. Probably just some part of him just happy to see the world had some sort of permanence after it all.

“Klaus,” Five balanced the rifle on his shoulder so he could pinch the bridge of his nose, “If you don’t stop that I will pop all four tires on that thing right now.” 

The supposedly grown man just raised a hand up in surrender, the other still tangled up in a sling. It had been a hard won battle to keep Klaus from gesturing with both hands when he spoke, agitating his healing arm, so this was an improvement at least. 

“Fine, geeze, touchy touchy.” Klaus said, though the goofy smile didn’t leave his lips, “What have you got there, buddy?”

“A gun.”

“What for?” Klaus hopped off the cart, stumbling a little on the dismount, free hand already reaching out to try to touch it.

Five sidestepped him and switched it to the other shoulder. They’d all been trained on guns of course, he trusted Klaus wouldn’t injure either of them, but he also wasn’t an idiot. It was his, he found it. 

“For hunting,” Five said with what he hoped was a dismissive ease, chin high. Klaus’s quirk of an eyebrow called him on it immediately. They’d only seen maybe three rats in the last week and a half, and that was it. So, caught, Five shrugged, “For fun.”

Klaus barked a laugh and patted him on the back, “Good! Sounds like a _completely_ normal hobby. Now come with me, we’re going shopping.” The taller man didn’t wait for an argument, attempting to steer Five out of the store. Again, Five rolled out of it deftly, ducking back under his arm. Number Four just whipped back around puppy dog eyes in full force, slowly walking backwards and wiggling a beckoning hand.

Five rolled his eyes, but only turned around briefly to drop a couple boxes of low caliber ammo into a shopping bag and followed.

Four was attempting a slow moonwalk out of the store and Five refused to run to catch up with him, so he made the man wait as he strolled back around to him. Klaus brightened immediately and looped an arm loosely around the boy’s skinny neck, pulling him out of the store and down towards the central hub of the mall. “Oh, this is going to be so good!”

“I’ll bite,” Five said shifting in token protest under Klaus’s arm but not really putting any effort into it, “What are we shopping for?”

Number Four reached back up to tip his crown, only the nest of dark curls keeping it from falling off, “There comes a time in every man’s life where he must take a step forward into adulthood,” Klaus started, hand sweeping as if to indicate the land and all the riches they owned, pulling in a dramatic watery sigh, “today is the day that you acquire… a _wardrobe_.” 

Five scoffed and turned on his heel back to go get more bullets but, in clever anticipation, Klaus was already there to block his retreat.

“I have clothes already,” He gestured at the scuffed up uniform, though the protest felt weak to his own ears. The Academy uniform had been washed once or twice but the dust always just reappeared. It wasn’t the only thing he had, to be fair. He’d also acquired a few t-shirts and such to swap into when necessary, and as many socks as he could get his hands on. His feet were mostly healed but he never kept off of them for long enough to let the full process take place. Instead, he just layered on three socks at a time and it suited him fine. As for the blazer, well, it just felt normal to wear it. So he did. 

“Those are not clothes,” Klaus flicked at the lapel distastefully, “These are a prison uniform. Come _on_ , for the first time in your whole life you don’t have to wear what you’re told! No monogrammed PJs, no sweatervests, no stupid little crests with incorrect Latin on it. You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

Five had opened his mouth to argue, because that just seemed the smart thing to do when Klaus Hargreeves was attempting to give you life advice, but even as he held his mouth open, he couldn’t find any words to push out of it. Startlingly, Five noted with a curious tilt of his head, Klaus was making a lot of sense. 

He snapped his mouth shut after a second and tucked his hands in his pocket, evaluating himself. Why had he just been wearing this still? Convenience at first sure, but then… the shorts were awful, any piece of exposed skin got chewed up by the wind and sun. The blazer was too hot and unadaptable. The little shiny loafers had been his own personal hell the last week. He’d.. Had he just been wearing it by habit? That revelation started to sink in as Klaus’s last conspiratorial phrase finally processed in his brain. 

“Wait, what was that last part?” 

Klaus crooked a finger, seeing he’d gotten Five back on track, and they continued back in the direction of the clothing wing. 

“So, you know how Allison and I got all those language lessons? Well I thought I was hot shit after they started teaching us Latin.” 

Five remembered, each of them had gotten a special study subject chosen by their father as early as 4. Five’s had been math. 

“So I go into Pogo’s office one night and on his desk is a bunch of papers, order forms, and a paper with a drawing. I was y’know, at the tiny adorable age of six or something and I look at the drawing and go, Oh no! The Latin is wrong! Dad’s gonna get so mad at Pogo!” Klaus slapped his hand on the side of his face, voice pitching up higher than any voice he'd ever had, “So, y’know… I fixed it.” 

Five blinked helplessly, “...The Academy Crest is wrong?”

“Yup, practically gibberish” Klaus turned on his heel and started walking backwards, “Turns out it was _the_ design guide for pretty much everything. I was trying to help.” 

Five pulled his blazer out in front of him to look at the Latin upside down in front of him, voice cracking in disbelief, “and Dad never even noticed?”

“Nope!” Klaus cackled with glee and dropped into a deep imitation of their father, “The old chap had better things to concentrate on, I suppose.”

“But,” laughter bubbled up, and Five did nothing to stop it, “But that crest is _all over the house._ On our uniforms. We wore them in front of the _president_ ! _”_

_“_ I _KNOW,_ right?! I don’t think Dad even _knew_ Latin! He just thought it’s what fancy people do!” 

Here, right here, under the full manic weight of Four’s attention, something loosened deep in Five’s chest. Confusingly happy, they spent the rest of the walk repeatedly collapsing into fits of laughter.

They had the luxury of the rest of the day to spend there. The trek to the mall was fairly long, so Five had accounted for staying in the mall overnight. He didn’t want to rush through what could be a very valuable location. When they got to the nearest clothing department Klaus basically punted him into the shop and told him to go wild. 

Five really had no reason or urge to argue, but, never one to miss an opening, he had leveraged it to get Klaus to go find himself some shoes he could walk more than a mile in without them falling off. The boots he’d had on for the last week appeared to have been stapled together even _before_ the apocalypse. It hadn’t been a hard sell, Klaus just smooched him obnoxiously on the head and ducked out of the shop without any fuss. Easy. 

The task itself though, was not easy. He looked at the tags in his uniform for guidance on sizes, but there was just… too much to choose from. A mountain of articles of clothing that looked nearly identical to his eyes. He lost twenty minutes in a fog, just picking things up and putting them back down. What did he even like? Why did this feel so daunting, it was ridiculous. 

He found himself drifting over to button ups, the same cut and shade as his uniform, and wondered if they had any blazers.

Thankfully Klaus swept back in shortly, feet in shiny fire engine red cowboy boots with silver studs. 

“No. Try again.” Five pointed at Klaus’s shoes. They looked stiff and screamed of decoration over function. 

Klaus returned as good as he got, flapping his good arm at the display of white button ups and dress pants Five was loitering in front of, “No to you too, then!”

The standoff was tense and embarrassing for all involved. 

“Christ on a cracker, kid,” Klaus exhaled, “Look, if I promise to go get some tennis shoes or something will you let me bring you some stuff?” 

“Sure, fine. Don’t call me kid.” Five waved the man away, putting up a good front even as his face was flushing. Inwardly he was just relieved he wasn’t being made to figure this out alone. It only occurred to him as his brother turned away with a partially hidden smirk on his face that Five might have just gotten played. 

Before the sun dipped too low Five found himself with a stack of new belongings. Five’s opening Salvo had been wildly ridiculous (and he suspected only for the joke of it), and Five had refused to even touch them, but Klaus quickly tapered off to more reasonable choices. Different enough they made him slightly uneasy, but at the same time made his little rebel soul warm.

In the end, the folded stack were all remarkably practical, sturdy, and suited to their current environment. Klaus seemed to have an odd eye for it. Knowing if a certain fabric was going to breathe or chafe, if it would last more than a week on the streets or fall to ribbons immediately. Perhaps it was some training they’d been given after Five had left, either way he was grateful for it.

He now had a wealth of pockets, a belt to loop Diego’s knife onto, scarves and gloves to keep the wind off their skin, and they’d both doubled back to the sporting goods store to pick out some boots. They both got soft leather waterproof boots that laced up to mid-calf, though Klaus brought the cowboy boots along as a threat. They’d need some breaking in before they were truly comfortable but Five was thrilled at the idea he wouldn’t have to pick pieces of glass out of his feet anymore. 

On top of the stack laid his favorite piece. A jacket, nothing fancy, heavy olive canvas with a collar familiar enough to make him feel normal, but with an unconventional zipper. He couldn’t say why he liked it… he just did.

He looked across to where Klaus was attempting to light a fire one-handed under a busted open skylight, cursing like a skipping record. He’d let him suffer for a few more minutes then get up to help, but until then, he closed his eyes and sunk deeper into the nest of rejected clothes he’d built his bed out of, making sure to rest his feet on a pair of leopard print skinny jeans Klaus had been trying to convince him into.

It had been… a good day. Odd.

Number Four crowed loud enough it echoed off the walls, the first flicker of a fire lapping up over the meager pile of gathered wood. Five eased over to help feed the new flame until it took completely. 

“Told you I could do it,” Klaus popped the collar of his new jacket, a long, impractical thing that Klaus had only defended by saying, ‘It’ll look really cool in the wind.’ The clothes underneath it were layered in the same style as Five’s. The practicality of the getup was disguised by the flashy touches the man had added. Colorful bracelets, a few rings, bright scarf, and a set of noisy metal necklaces that clanked together as he moved like a bell on a cat. Five was probably going to appreciate them for that fact later.

“At what point post-apocalypse do we start gluing car parts to our clothes, do you think?” Klaus dropped down next to Five, “Like Mad Max?”

“Mad Max?” Five asked, confused, “And are you admitting the apocalypse happened finally?”

Klaus’s gaze shot away faster than anything, visibly flushed at the attempt to backpedal from the topic. “Y-yeah I mean, Mel Gibson, total dirtbag in real life but whatever, it’s Australia but they’re all really into cars—y’know hey, where did you put the radio? I found some more tapes and we should see if they’re garbage or not.”

Five observed archly as his brother slouched more and more into himself, avoiding eye contact with the other at all costs. This had been the last week and a half for Five. That first night Klaus had woken up had been the last time Five had gotten anything substantial out of his brother. The very next morning, after Five had gotten Klaus up to eat, drink, and take some medication, he had slipped into this nothing talk and never returned, turning all attempts Five made at more information to the side with a remarkable ease. 

At first Five hadn’t pressed because Klaus was still healing, then he’d just been busy surviving, now he… they’d had such a nice day. He kind of just wanted to keep it that way.

So, he just stood up and patted Klaus on the shoulder, “I think I left it in the wagon on the first floor. I’ll be back in fifteen.”

Klaus looked immediately relieved, well, he did for a second, until the next words slipped out of his mouth and he looked like he wanted to punch himself in the face, “Why not just bampf there?” 

Five tensed, mouth thinning to a line. His fingers tingled, begging to be balled into fists, to tear into the very fabric of the universe. It was awake now to what it could truly do. It begged him to push harder, to tear larger, to maybe stay in the in-between longer. It wasn’t that he hadn’t used them, he did on instinct when he had no other choice, having spent too long training the split second jumps, but he no longer had the playful approach to their use. He just didn’t feel like wasting the energy and that was all there was to it.

He distantly heard Klaus cursing under his breath, insulting his own intelligence, then eventually, two fingers carefully reached out to brush against Five’s arm. 

“Look, hey heeyy, it’s not that you have to or anything. You just used to-- If … you need help, or something is wrong you could — shit.” Klaus tapered off when Five jerked his arm away and sat back down just out of reach, arms crossed, back ramrod straight. 

Time stretched, the mood souring significantly and Five felt a distant feeling of loss as it went. Klaus, for his part, was a fidgeting miserable mess, practically twisting himself in knots, and Five just let him. He didn’t even know why he wanted Klaus to suffer in the silence, but it felt good even without a reason. 

After several unsuccessful attempts to restart conversation Klaus seemed to give up, fishing out an orange pill bottle from his jacket and shook some out on his palm. It made Five sink a little, Klaus was still recovering from his injuries, though he barely showed it. He should be more considerate of that, but his stubbornness was orders of magnitude stronger than his shame, so the stony silence dragged on.

Four crunched noisily on the pills and seemed to bolster himself, apparently not as willing to give up as Five had thought. The older man made a huge production of sliding over, obnoxiously close and as fidgety as ever. 

“Look, okay, I— I mean Ben.” Klaus started, not looking at his brother but giving the fire a stern look, “Ben and I. We talked about our powers a lot. About how they scared… Ben.” 

Five whipped a glare over at Klaus, “I am _not_ scared of my powers.”

Klaus could only huff a sigh at that transparency, “Okay, I believe you, so I’m just gonna talk about Ben for a bit okay?” 

The sun had sank completely above and the moon only graced them with a sliver of her presence. The sky was still choked with smoke from unchecked fires in the city. With only their little fire to light the empty hall, it left a lot of darkness for two emotionally fragile boys to hide their expressions in. 

“Ben would say that… he felt like his powers were too big. Too much. Like… okay it was cool at first, to be special and useful to the family? Maybe show off some. Back when things were littler, more controllable? It was _fun_ ,” Klaus edged a look, “but, Dad didn’t want little powers, Dad wanted big powers. He wanted you to push, and the powers just got… so _big_ , so quickly. One day you have a handle on them, then, _boom_ , completely ballooned like crazy.” 

Klaus shrugged, “So _Ben_ just, felt scared… all the time.”

“This is not encouraging,” Five groused into his scarf, trying not to think of accidentally catching Ben crying in his room, of hearing it often after that and doing absolutely nothing about it.

“I know, it really isn’t,” Klaus scraped a hand up into his hair, knocking the crown off he’d obviously forgotten was there. It was hopelessly snarled in a curl and Klaus yanked it free with no patience, “Shit, ow. I guess, it’s just… you can be scared of your powers and you can use that to find a way to control them. Control them _however you can_ , as _much_ as you can. They’re always going to be bigger than us, I don’t think we’re meant to be completely in control, I don’t care what Dad says about it. These are too… astronomical. You just have to do your fucking best.”

Five stared away, words coming out as a whisper, “But Dad _didn’t_ want me to do what I did.”

Klaus had no answer to that, but Five did.

“Dad was right.”

“Language, young man. Not under my roof.” Klaus hissed, pointing to the sky above where there was absolutely no roof at all. The joke sounded desperate to both of their ears but Five did him the favor of a soulless pity laugh. 

The fire popped, shooting sparks up into the eaves. 

“Was Ben there? At the end? There was a— I couldn’t tell for sure.”

Klaus shrank, “Yes… but mostly no.”

“What happened to him?”

Four’s fidgeting doubled, having realized the grave he’d dug himself but not seeing any way out of it. “He ...died. Years ago.” A hollow laugh scraped out, “Beautiful bastard’s powers just got too much for him.” 

“Oh.” Five let himself sink into the darkness, voice placid, reaching for his blanket and easing over into his makeshift bedroll. He turned his back pointedly to the older man, “Goodnight, Klaus.”

Klaus sounded utterly miserable, rolling the pill bottle between his hands noisily, “Goodnight, Five.”

  
***  
  


It was nearly impossible to identify the Icarus Theater if you hadn’t seen it before the destruction. The building was practically scattered to the four corners of the earth. Klaus swore he saw one of the seats embedded in the side of a building on their hike back from the mall. Probably wouldn’t have seen it at all if he wasn’t so aggressively avoiding eye contact with one thirteen-year-old. It was one of the more uncomfortable walks in his life, and Klaus was a veritable connoisseur of walks of shame, so that was saying something.

The kid had parted ways as soon as they got back to their weird little subway hovel-home to “think” and Klaus hadn’t even raised a finger to stop him. Seemed fair after his clusterfuck of a pep-talk, Klaus wanted to be away from himself too but unfortunately that was not an option. Chemically though, well, that was definitely something he was eager to experiment with. 

The pain medication lovely, kind Five retrieved for his injuries had been doing the trick more or less. It was a veritable cornucopia of socially acceptable narcotics. They kept the ghosts away to a decent degree, but they just didn’t quite hit all the notes Klaus needed for today. Today, Klaus needed to supplement from his own private collection, still secreted into his ripped up old jacket.

Today, Klaus needed to be brave. Brave and blessedly numb. 

Which brought him, swaying in the evening air, back to the Icarus.

What idiot would name any establishment that anyway. It’s like they were asking for it to be burnt down. It hadn’t been, burnt down that is, it had just been… erased. Klaus could sort of see the footprint of the ticketing office, maybe, to his right. If he closed his eyes maybe—wait, bad idea the world was too spinny with his eyes closed, if he just pictured it real hard, he could see the sets of double doors he’d been lounging outside that night. 

Lookout. Of course. 

***

“Who are they even expecting to show up?” Klaus paced in front of the doors, wound up and puffing on a cigarette. Unfortunately _only_ a cigarette, the ticketing manager looked like his little bow tie was on too tight and he was watching Klaus like a hawk.

Ben was hunched down next to the wall, per usual being a much better lookout than Klaus had ever been. “Maybe Vanya’s weasel of a boyfriend will show up late and we can shove him in the dumpster where he belongs.” 

Klaus barked out a laugh, “Boyfriend is such a strong word, I prefer Vanya’s ‘Greasy Parasite’. You saw the shrine he had in his attic.” 

“Yeah,” Ben hummed, concerned, “and the wreckage of that cabin.” 

Number Four could only shiver and took a long drag to just give himself a moment to think. To recalibrate his entire reality, “You... really think she’s had powers this whole time?” 

Ben shrugged, “It always felt weirder that she didn’t.”

They’d been chasing after Vanya for over four days now after what could only be described as a blow-up fight at the Academy. Harsh words were supposedly said, windows had been smashed, secrets revealed. Klaus didn’t know, he had been… elsewhere, only brushing past Vanya as she and her antsy looking boy-toy were on their way out. The guy couldn’t even look Klaus in the eye and practically ran the rest of the way out of sight. 

Made sense, the creep wasn’t even the creep he said he was, Allison and Diego found out in two seconds flat later that day. They’d been trying to find Vanya ever since, but all they found was… wreckage. Twisted cars. Dead fish in a lake. A whole section of uprooted forest and a cabin converted to wood chips.

“Sir,” The ticketing manager had wandered out, hands clasped in front of himself like a person trying to figure out how to dispose of a used tissue without touching it, “We don’t allow loitering...or smoking within 20 feet of the theater entrance.”

Klaus flapped the ticket Vanya had left them at the house before the little (very big) blow up, “I have a ticket, calm down. This guy, right?” 

The man’s eyes narrowed and, fair, perhaps talking to your deceased brother in plain view was not the best call. “Sir,” The man started more sternly before his head jerked to the side for a second, either also hearing ghosts or listening to the little earpiece hooked to his radio. Whichever it was, he all of a sudden looked alarmed. 

Ben seemed to notice quicker, phasing through the door and deeper into the lobby, head quirked to pick up sound, “Klaus. Something’s happening.”

***

The balcony had collapsed into tinder, but there was a gap large enough to allow Klaus to slip through if he thought skinny(er) thoughts and then he was out under the open sky once more, only the barest hint of aisle indicating the structure at all. 

The world did a really good merry-go-round impression as Four attempted to pick his way down the aisle towards the slope of rubble that had once been the stage. It was good, it meant the drugs were still at a level he wanted them, his mind floating above him, away from all the nasty chemicals his body would probably try to use to make him _feel things._ Gross.

It didn’t stop him from hearing things though, the muzzy sound of a disembodied orchestra getting louder and louder as he advanced, dotted here and there with shouts of surprise, the shuffling unease of a crowd not sure if the thing they were seeing was part of the show or not. 

Shuffling that turned into chaos as great arcs of light started taking chunks out of the mezzanine and the people sitting in it. Then the panic.

Klaus, in past and present, pushed forward towards the stage.

***

“Vanya?” Klaus staggered to a stop at the front row, his sister, his quiet mousy sister was glowing, standing at the front of a captive orchestra, foot up on the director’s podium with all the confidence of a colonizer claiming land.

Her eyes, unnatural, insane eyes zeroed in, considered, then utterly dismissed him. 

Ben was next to him, voice tiny in comparison to the magnified orchestra in front of them. Where the fuck were their siblings? They’d all went in the back entrance ten minutes ago. 

“Do something, Klaus, she’s going to bury this place!” Ben yelled at him. Klaus was frozen, staring at her and around at the swaths of crowd that sat unmoving. The room was thick with death and he couldn’t get his feet to move from the spot. 

Ever so slowly, he saw his remaining siblings ease out from behind the curtains, trying to surround her. Allison opened her mouth and Vanya lashed out. 

Klaus just watched.

***

He found the graves in what had been the backstage. Five had apparently been back, as there were neat stacks of stone over each of them. They hadn’t been moved from where they fell, likely too heavy, maybe too deteriorated. Five had marked the boundaries of their graves with rebar and a loop of fabric at the head. 

Klaus staggered between them and let his legs fold him to the ground. 

“Hi everyone.” He said, a facsimile of cheer, “I … If you’re here I can’t see you. Probably.” He hoped he couldn’t. He hoped they weren’t here. He hoped they went wherever you were supposed to go when you died. 

He wiggled his legs up so he could rest his chin on his knee, hand holding the pill bottle at the ready even as his mind tried very hard to berate him for it. He couldn’t keep his mind from imagining the disappointed faces his siblings may be making at this very moment or perhaps not disappointed, just… resigned. They’d be expecting it. 

“I’m sorr—“ He choked on the word unexpectedly and tried a different route, “I… I found Five? Yaayy. He’s… he’s so. Small. He’s a kid, he never seemed like a kid back then.”

He wasn’t even that tiny. He was only maybe a head or so shorter than him, and may actually have more meat on his bones than Klaus. It was the feel of him that surprised Klaus. He’d always remembered Five as being so solid, obnoxiously cocky, always seeming to know he was right and he often was. Now though, now he could see the veneer there, the artifice even Five probably didn’t know he’d constructed. He was as fucked up as the rest of them.

Klaus scrubbed his face with his hands, agitating the wind burns there pleasantly. Anything to help him ride the line between floaty and focused.

“I need— he needs help. I’m so bad at this, christ. I know. Huge surprise for you all, I’m sure.”

He had another pill crunching between his teeth before he even fully formed the thought. That was bad, even for him. He buried his face in his knees and wrapped his one good arm over his head just to make it all go away for a moment. 

“Ben if you’re there, please. You’ve never been gone this long before. I know I’m… pretty far in, but that hasn’t stopped you before. Please, this is the last place I saw you, it’s the only thing I can think to do.” He grabbed a fistful of hair and twisted, a hysterical giggle bubbling up, “Please, Ben? I can’t do this, I’m the wrong person, the wrongest person. Literally any one of them would be better.”

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

The feelings heated suddenly, angry at the silence, the silence he had perhaps caused through medication and cowardice, but he was beyond logic at that point. “What am I supposed to do, huh? I can’t tell him about Vanya, it will _destroy_ him! If he even believes me at all.” Klaus grabbed a rock and threw it as far as he could, “I’m going to fuck this up and it’s going to be all _your_ fault. He’s going to hate me, hate you, and then we’ll both die in this wasteland. You happy now!?”

The mood swing snapped back as quickly as it occurred, and Klaus was back to crouching, mumbling apologies into this knees. The graves had no response. The air remained silent. 

“Why do I have to keep coming back…”

In that moment, he couldn’t tell, but for the first time he was not surrounded by a crush of souls begging for help. There was only one single figure. Small. Slight. Devoid of all descriptive features and charred down to her heart. Watching.

And she was still very, very angry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments, I'm jazzed at every one. I think I just like yelling at people who like the same things as me? Comment if you desire to be yelled at.


	5. Day 71

### Apocalypse: Day 71

“Tada!” Klaus slid an upturned box in front of Five’s nose, “Bon appetit.”

Five stared blearily at it, lying wrapped in three blankets on his cot, not even sticking a finger out to poke at it, “What is it?”

Klaus hummed a little fanfare and tugged the box up, showing an extremely mundane, but enticingly steaming bowl of liquid like it was the main course at a five star restaurant. He’d even folded a towel over his arm like a waiter.

“Eh-eh?” Four prodded, leaning forward to scooch the bowl a half inch closer, “It’s chicken noodle soup.”

Klaus was trying very hard to read his now younger (that was still SO weird) brother, but it was something he had never once been good at. Five had this face he did, this _pinched_ expression _,_ that seemed to be very multipurpose. Was he angry? Was he disgusted? Maybe he was just confused, thinking, or perhaps nauseous. Klaus could never quite tell, though that last one was more probable at the current moment. 

The kid had been up and down with fevers and shakes for the past 12 hours, bad enough it actually had kept Five home for a whole day, though he didn’t seem to be happy about it. 

The pinched look made an appearance. The bottom half of his face hidden in blankets, but his eyebrows were aggressive enough to speak for his whole face. He shuffled up into a sitting position and leaned into the steam to look at it. 

“There’s rice in this.” Five reached out for the spoon and gave it an experimental stir. 

“Fine, fine, you caught me, we’re out of chicken noodle. It’s more like… chicken bullion, rehydrated chicken parmesan MREs, and rice.” He shrugged, “But just pretend it’s chicken noodle.”

The pinch eased slightly and Five huffed, probably a laugh, “Why?”

Klaus pressed an offended hand to his collarbone, “Why? Because you’re my favorite brother and I want to take care of you.” 

Five softened, absolutely laughing this time, though it seemed to be a mix of at-him laughing as much as it was with-him laughing. Klaus also could have sworn he heard the dark humored murmur of, “Only _remaining_ brother,” Sick bastard. Literally. Hah.

The younger took a sip, then another, that was good right? Klaus clasped his hands in front of him, like a puppy waiting for a treat. He deserved it! He’d really went the extra mile here, thank you very much. Under Dolores’s guidance he’d become quite a good cook.

Finally, and perhaps it was how far Klaus had been leaning forward in anticipation, but he’d like to think Five spoke up without any prompting, “It’s really good, Klaus.”

If he hadn’t of been sitting cross legged on the floor Four might have done a victory lap, but instead he just lifted both his arms above his head (he could do that now! Good old righty was back in the game!) Never mind, life was too short, the world had ended. YOLO. Klaus swept to a stand and bowed, little towel still folded over an arm. 

“Thank you! I obviously missed my calling.”

“Doomsday prepper chef?” Five gave a fond head shake, tipping the bowl up to sip at the contents. 

“Why not. Underserved market.” Klaus tossed back an eyebrow waggle and strode over to their imitation of a kitchen.

The subway platform had come a long way over the last two months. 

There had been thoughts of moving elsewhere, finding a less dark living situation, but the weather had been too harsh and unpredictable, despite it being June, spring had never seemed to arrive. Temperatures dipped ridiculously low and storms were a frequent occurrence. The subway had turned out to just be a safe bet once they walled off a section they could insulate better. Klaus didn’t like travelling in them, but the tunnels themselves were a godsend in traversing the city, especially past major blockages or when storms refused to give up for days on end.

Not only that, but they’d busted open one of the sprinkler pipes weeks ago and let the contents drain into large industrial barrels, a considerable amount of clean water which was monstrous to find these days. Five had also pointed out that if they were _really_ hurting for some protein, the rat population was starting to rebound and they had traps. It had thankfully not come to that yet, to Klaus’s surprise, if you dug deep enough he did have some standards left.

Five’s pride and joy were the tubs and boxes lined up in one corner, water sealed and filled with supplies that Five never seemed to think they had enough of. Four’s favorites were more frivolous. 

While Five was stockpiling food, Klaus was making the place… homey. He scavenged the four surrounding city blocks and found every serviceable area rug and stretched them across every piece of floor and wall he could reach. The mirrors were next, as many as he could get and as big as he could get. He experimented with them, positioning them strategically around the platform and up the stairs until they bounced the outside light in at all times of the day. Five had actually been impressed at that one and Klaus strategically chose not to inform him he’d learned that from watching The Mummy.

Some other amenities made their way in, bean bag chairs, a few tables, a beaded curtain to go over the stairway entrance, of course. Oh, and the best damn part: Beds. 

They were just rickety twin cots, but Klaus had done his damnedest to acquire two good quality actual real life mattresses to put on top of them. Five, who had previously only passively accepted his excursions for unnecessary things, had actually been a bit choked up when he’d come back to see them. Klaus would never forget it, the kid had just looked at him like he was Santa Claus (or Santa Klaus, really), then wordlessly walked over and faceplanted into his bed’s sweet, fluffy embrace. 

It had been instrumental in Klaus’s getting Five to sleep for 8 hours each day. The kid did not do “nothing” well, something Klaus could really commiserate with. Neither of them were great at stillness or boredom, especially when stressed. So Five had typically been up before dawn and down much after it, and it had been running him down to nothing. If Klaus had known the bed switch would have worked as well as it did, he would have done it much sooner. Apparently there was something about the shift from sleeping on cold subway tile to being six inches off the ground on memory foam that really did the trick.

It wasn’t comfortable. They both ached all the time, covered in scrapes, bruises, skin patchy from wind and harsh temperatures. Navigating the demolish city was extremely dangerous and there had been more than one close call when buildings had tried to come down around them. They’d had hope at first that other cities might have survived, and they’d tried contacting them, spending a few nights in a radio station. They kept eyes out for planes. Nothing. To their knowledge, at least the entirety of North America was beyond contact, perhaps dead. That had been a bitter pill. 

Every day was a struggle and it left them barely feeling human most days.

However, Klaus liked to think he was bringing something to the table here. The constant hustle? Old hat. He had a lifetime of experience of making the best of a deeply shitty situation and this was just that skill coming to its final conclusion. He could use it to preserve _something_ of Five, though he doubted he’d know what parts he could save until much later, if any. 

“I didn’t mean why make it, by the way,” Five called with a raw voice, placing his now empty bowl on the dinged end table between the two of their cots. They had tried sleeping further apart at first, but... that didn’t last long. It had taken them one night to shift their beds head-to-head so they could hear each other breathe in the dark. Neither of them bothering to discuss the reasons.

Klaus was back over by the cooking pot, up on the first landing of the stairs so that most of the smoke filtered up. He came back down with two new bowls, pointedly handing another one to Five and taking the other for himself, not even bothering with a spoon. 

The boy took the new bowl with a roll of his eyes, “I _meant_ , why do I have to pretend that it’s chicken noodle?” 

“You’re sick.” Klaus said as it if it was an obvious answer, though it didn’t seem to be to Five, “It’s the thing you eat when your sick. Don’t you remember mom bringing it to us?”

That seemed to ping something, though not quite the bright happy light Klaus was hoping for, “Ah yeah, I guess she did.”

Oh right. God. Klaus had spent the last decade smothering his childhood memories with every recreational chemical known to mankind. He hadn’t really thought he’d get much into his thirties, let alone need them after the world had ended but here he was needing to drag them all back up again, kicking and screaming.

Here was the thing with Grace. She had evidently been around before their acquisition in some form, helping their father with whatever batshit things he was up to before buying seven children, or so Klaus had been told. They had been introduced to her as their nanny around the age of four, and her integration into the family had been… bumpy, given they were also simultaneously informed that she was a robot. As bizarre as their upbringing had been, and as young as they had been, that had still pinged on their extremely skewed weirdometers. 

There had been a few glitches at first, a few recalibrations required, but through it all Grace had been as wonderful to them as she was allowed to be, and somewhere along the line each of them had made the choice to switch over from Grace to Mom instead. 

Klaus had let her into his life in the way he let any comfort in: with open arms and the assumption it would harm him at some point. The influence their father had over her behavior and decisions was obvious even then, and as Klaus soured to the old man, he had trouble separating the two in his mind. Then one time he’d seen her eyes flicker to the left after some harsh comment or another, after the tattoos, the trips away, and he realized, she was just like them. Just like the kids, she was trapped in the Academy by the circumstances of her creation with somehow even less power. Shortly after that realization, he’d made the decision to call her mom simply because it seemed to make her happy, and he would never deprive her of that. 

Five though, Five had been the last to come around to Grace, and when he did it seemed more as a capitulation to peer pressure than a real acceptance. He kept her at arms length emotionally up to the day he left. 

“You never got along with her did you.” Klaus mused out loud, not really expecting an answer.

He got one though, “You don’t get along with a coffee pot. It’s just there.”

“Yikes. Harsh.” Klaus wheeze out a shocked laugh. It may have been that Five wasn’t feeling well or that maybe Klaus was just getting better at reading the pinch in Five’s brow, but the kid looked mildly chastised. 

He sat down the empty bowl, Five probably hadn’t wanted a second but Klaus knew that he would hate wasting any of their supplies more. 

“She…” Five pulled the blankets in around him, “She was a trick. Just one of Dad’s tools meant to appease us. You know all of the things she said came verbatim from the parenting books Dad bought? He just slipped them into her protocols entirely. He even made her look exactly like the model on one of the covers.” 

Klaus hummed an agreement, not surprised. Their father had a whole section of his library about child rearing from various points of view. His favorites were kept on his office desk, archaic things with a disciplinarian tilt, the others were still old but had more broad approaches.

Grace seemed to have been given the entire selection, and perhaps it was the books that believed that mothers were nurturing or perhaps, given many different tactics to choose from, Grace (or her programming) had decided affection and love was the best route. He hadn’t let himself think deeply on it, it just seemed like a big scary philosophical pit and Klaus liked things to be nice, simple, and the least filled with existential horror, thank you. 

When he did allow himself to think about it, after a very good hug, or her waking up to get him a cookie after a rough night... he liked to think the affection had been her choice. Diego seemed to think so, and given how things ended, well. 

“Luther decommissioned her.” Klaus said all of a sudden, feeling Five should know. 

The boy just blinked, impossible to read again. 

“Her programming wasn’t right, she…” God he couldn’t say that she may have killed Dad. That was a direct path into talking about the end of the world and Vanya and _no_ . He’d worked very hard to let that subject lie. “She was just erratic, you know? They were worried she’d hurt someone by mistake. So we took a vote to turn her off or not and the votes said keep her on. Diego was sure he could prove she was actually thinking for herself, and I dunno about that. I just thought that if she was kinda… off, that made her _more_ a part of the family, not less.”

“Then why did Luther turn her off?” Five crossed his arms, confused.

Klaus could only mutter into his soup bowl, “One knows best, I guess.” The fallout hadn’t been pretty either. Diego had reacted… badly and that altercation had been such a big hairy deal they’d just completely forgot to inform Vanya for nearly two days. Allison had to go hunt her down to break the news after practice. 

“Is that why you didn’t take her name?” Klaus drummed his fingers on the sides of the bowl, having wanted to ask this for twenty years. God the drama he’d caused. Five had not only turned down Mom’s offer of a name but Dad’s as well when they’d been handing out their “codenames”. Five had given the press a runaround with that one, forcing them just call him “the boy” during their big debut.

“It was unnecessary. I liked Five. It felt like any name they offered me would come with strings, they’d chosen them with an idea of who they wanted me to be.” He tilted a bit, gaze far away, “Five is a name that means absolutely nothing, it was just a random assignment at birth. A prime that can’t be broken down into anything else. With a name like that, I was the only one who could decide who I was going to be with it. No one else.”

Klaus rocked back at that. Times like these, looking pale and sweaty, balled up in a mountain of blankets Five looked his age so painfully that Klaus could barely stand it, then he opened up his mouth and said shit like that. 

Five had always been in such a hurry to grow up.

“You should go out and hit up that apartment building before you lose the light, I can take care of myself. I’ll just take something and try to sleep this off. ” 

Shit. Klaus whipped his attention back over. The boy was trying to wobble his way off the cot already and Four just pushed him back down. 

“No, no, no. You sit your tiny ass down. I’ll get it for you. You’re going to pass out and brain yourself on a table and then I’d be doomed here, wouldn’t I?” Klaus capped that sentiment off with a forced laugh, maneuvering the grumpy teen back under the covers, and then placed a teddy bear he’d gotten specifically just to taunt him in under the cover as well. 

Five tossed it at him even before Klaus could even turn away to go to the crate they stored their medical supplies in, but didn’t complain otherwise, just another indicator of how miserable he must be. 

As he headed across the room, Klaus caught a bit of movement in the corner of his eye. A lifetime of experience kept him from chasing it. It could be a rat or cockroach, but he knew it would be neither of those. The ghosts had been seeping in more and more these days and he was well on the downward slope of his last dose. Instead of checking the movement directly, he edged a look into one of the many mirrors, the other reason he’d wanted them down here. It usually bought him time if the ghosts weren’t aware he could see them, but he needed to know where they were to avoid them properly.

He checked several mirrors as he passed, not seeing anything in the rest of the room. Maybe nothing then. Probably not. He wasn’t that lucky.

He dropped down in front of the medical crate and eased the lid up. 

He’d like to say he was catering to his brother in his time of need only out of the goodness of his heart, and part of him did want to, but the rest of him needed to stay here for another reason. 

Looking down into the crate, the vast armfuls of medication they’d gathered here and there from hospitals and pharmacies was all but gone. 

It was a miracle Five hadn’t figured it out yet, he was the single most observant child he’d ever met, but Klaus had very particular skills when he wanted to. He didn’t make it through four rehab stints without seeing a single ghost by accident. When he needed to, he knew how to hide it. 

He’d started taking just the narcotics from the stash originally, but those ran thin, so he started going for second-bests. He’d had every intention of replacing the lost items before Five ever found out, after he’d gotten something stronger, but the entirety of the shadier parts of the city had fallen into a giant sink hole and… well, it was both appropriate and unfortunate. 

He didn’t even have any real cold medicine to give Five any more, not any of the _really_ good kind. There was also a miscellaneous bag of pills Klaus had stumbled across that seemed promising but he could not immediately identify. He’d deemed them his last resort and had long since stashed those in various hiding spots up on street level. 

He quietly banged his head twice on the crate lid as penance, fuck he was the worst. He fished out two plain Tylenol, hopefully Five wouldn’t notice the discrepancy.

“Here you go little kiddo!” Klaus handed Five the pills and a canteen at the same time, then ruffled his hair aggressively to distract him, “Get better soon my tiny precious angel.”

Five was too busy glaring to really check the pills and downed them with water, using this free hand to flip Klaus off.

“Love you too, baby bro.” Klaus yanked the blankets up to Five’s chin and strategically covered a few mirrors to dim that side of the platform. His goofy act held up until well past the beaded curtain and up the stairs. 

He’d stopped wishing for Ben to appear weeks ago. He’d even eventually felt relieved at his absence. Ben had always been so selfless, too selfless, and Klaus had thought that urge to help had kept him around. Maybe if he couldn’t have seen him, maybe if he’d at least pretended he couldn’t see for a while longer than he did, Ben would have given up and gone. Alas, they were stuck together, and from that point on Klaus had tried to be the most entertaining human dumpster fire he could be, so at least Ben’s afterlife would be as lively as possible.

So maybe, when he’d died (and he was nearly sure he had actually died now) with the rest of them, maybe Ben felt done? No more siblings to protect, no more city, no more people at all. He had the barest impression of an After place after all his brushes with it, dreamy glimpses that fogged as time went on. He was glad Ben was there. 

No, what he wanted right then wasn’t really Ben persay, he just wanted someone to _stop_ him. To at least make him feel bad. He’d never needed a Jiminy Cricket, Klaus had always known when he was doing the wrong thing. Knowing wasn’t the issue, it was the caring part that was so fucking difficult sometimes.

He pulled out the cinched bag he’d started stashing his little helpers in. No more overt pill bottles anymore as he couldn’t pretend to need them for his arm, he’d dragged that charade on nearly too long as it was, his arm had been healed a week after waking up. 

He leaned against the railing eyeing the contents. These wouldn’t even last him the night. His tolerance was so high anymore that it took a fistful of the things to give him 8 hours of quiet. 

“Well Number Four,” He giggled to himself, “You’ve really gone and done it this time, huh?” 

Fuck, at the very least he could smoke. He crested the top of the stairs into the afternoon air and froze, confused. Had he lost time? He was sure he’d still been okay but... Klaus forced himself to light a cigarette and pretend to lounge on a bit of rubble while various ghosts wandered here and there, staring at the wreckage of their life around them. 

Okay, think. He blocked his gaze with his hand in the guise of protecting his lighter from the wind. He’d been fine downstairs, right, he’d checked everywhere and there hadn’t been any down there, so had he just gotten lucky? The drugs wore off quicker than they were supposed to and he hadn’t noticed until now? 

One of the ghosts ambled close, on track to pass through Klaus’s extended leg. Ever so slowly, Klaus pulled it back into himself, trying to draw the least amount of attention from the passing specter. 

Up here was just not gonna work for him, but the idea of descending into the subway unmedicated made him feel queasy. He’d dressed that place up for several reasons, one of which being that with the dark, all the pillars, and the musty smell, the place had seemed like a blast from one very particular part of his past. One that he tried hard not to relive. 

It was better now, right? Now that he’d made it look like the farthest thing from a mausoleum he could manage? He’d just have to take the chance, once they clumped up there was no hope of being sneaky anymore. As quickly as he could casually go, Klaus ground out his cigarette and moseyed on down the stairs again. If he attracted their attention they’d follow him down and that was the worst case scenario. 

He passed the cooking fire and had enough presence of mind to douse it before he headed fully down, taking the cooking pot with him to dump in their washing station. He stood there, knuckles pressing at either temple as he tried to think. 

What was he going to do? Maybe he could make the medication stretch? Even just a bit helped but it didn’t stop them from appearing or mobbing him. Maybe if he was _very_ careful not to let them know, he could withstand that for a while? Unlikely, but what choice did he have. He only had the small handful in his pocket and the bag of unknowns on the street above and god knew what those would do. He could ask Five for help, a voice in the back of his mind that sounded very much like Ben chipped in and he growled at it. 

No, absolutely not. There was one person in the world that didn’t know he was a reprehensible mess and once Five knew, he’d never trust him with anything again.

He swiped a hand over his face and turned, maybe the ghosts would let him sleep and he could think about it later—

A shadow moved in the room. Over by the bed. It wasn’t Five, he could see Five’s pale face asleep. The shadow was crouched next to him, a void of nothingness in the dim light. He saw it… and it saw him. 

It stopped what it was doing, a dark hand resting just over Five’s forehead, and stood up ever so slowly into the light. 

Oh god. Vanya. 

She was just charred skin and bone, somehow cracked like desert dirt and sticky looking at the same time. Hollow pits sat where her eyes should be, all distinguishable features erased, but he knew it was her. He’d seen the start of the process taking place as she was consumed in light so bright it gave off heat. 

He didn’t even bother to pretend he hadn’t seen her, she knew. All he could think to do was shake his head at her, begging her not to do this, because he could feel her presence from across the room, feel her anger, her _assurance_ of her own power. A rising tone rang unnaturally loud in the room. 

The new ghosts were always the worst. Stuck so deep in their last moments. The sadness, the fear, the rage, amplified to a single personification. 

She advanced by a step, bits of her cracking and sloughing off as she moved, an eldritch light starting in her sockets. 

“Please.” Klaus whispered to her, hands clasped together in front of his chest. 

She lunged for him over Five’s ignorant form, mouth hanging open in what should be a strangled scream, instead a brutally loud high tone emitted from her, stabbing directly into his brain. Her jaw cracked then hung crookedly with the force of it, but Klaus was already gone, sprinting up the stairs again in record time, lunging for the pile of rocks where he’d hidden the mystery bag in. 

Later in a haze, he would think on the encounter. How she had seemed so gentle at first, before he entered. About Vanya’s stance, arched over Five like a mother bear. Protecting him from what she perceived as a threat. 

Protecting Five from Klaus


	6. Day 83

### Apocalypse: Day 83

The sky was making Five nervous.

He’d been noticing it for some time now, not a single clear day since the start, the whole expanse choked with a weird red haze that blurred the sun. The fires had finally died down but they’d already poured smoke and god knew what else into the atmosphere. Five suspected too that there were larger fires still burning beyond the city limits where smoke still occasionally blew in from. 

It reminded Five of a story Ben had told him, about a year in the 1800s where, after a huge volcanic eruption, summer had just never shown up. Global temperatures dipped, crops died before they had a chance to grow, and mass famine followed soon after. He remembered it had been a weird thing for Ben to bring up at the time, Five having been in a particular mood that day.

“I think about it when I’m sad sometimes,” Ben had admitted shyly, “Because even though it was really awful and hurt a lot of people, it also trapped Mary Shelley and her friends in a big house where she used all that awfulness and turned it into one of my favorite books. So maybe… maybe even if something is… _horrific_ , if one good thing comes out of it, that can be enough? ”

God, Five missed Ben.

Sentiments aside, for Klaus and him, the story took on a different sort of menace. The winters here were harsh normally let alone with unnatural help. If they were looking at nine or more months of winter, with no source of heat besides their fire, if snow and storms hid all the scavengable food, if it buried them in…

It made Five very, very anxious, and it was starting to show. 

“We need to hit up those schools today,” He said tersely, yanking the laces on his boots taut with more aggression than was necessary, “Everything perishable will be gone but they should have some canned food left in decent quantities.”

“Hard pass.” 

Five snapped an angry gaze up at his brother who was lingering over by their supplies, rummaging through for no reason the teen could even begin to fathom. 

“You’ll what?”

“Pass!” Klaus waved a hand airily, not even bothering to turn. The last couple days the older man had been grating every. last. nerve. Five had. The man was deeply unpredictable at his best, but lately it was like he’d hit a fever pitch. He was being lazy, petulant, and his mood swung in ways defying any reason. It was dragging on the collection efforts, something that Four _knew_ was vital, but he’d never outright refused to go before. 

“You can’t refuse, _Four_ , we have to work together on this or we won’t survive until next year.” 

Klaus turned enough to stare at him flatly, usually expressive face dull. It was infuriating. Five opened his mouth to say something further but the words turned to a splutter as frigidly cold water hit him in the face. 

“What--” Five scrubbed his scarf down his face to see Klaus had stepped next to one of the water barrels and was dipping his hand in again to flick more at him. “The. Hell. Klaus.”

“I’m performing an exorcism,” Klaus lilted, one hand making a complicated nonsense gesture in the air, “Dad’s ghost must have been trying to take over your body. Got it though. You’re welcome.” 

The teen could only let out a hiss of air at that, jaw clenched so hard he could feel it in his ears. It was days like this that he wondered if this was hell and he just didn’t have the guts to admit it to himself. Some sort of Sisyphean fever dream and Klaus was playing the boulder he was condemned to push up a hill for all of eternity.

He didn’t know what it was that finally got through to him, but something in his rage seemed to as Klaus meekly shuffled over, hands pressed together in apology.

“Too Much. I know, I do. Promise I’ll be better.” Klaus attempted to rest a hand on Five’s shoulder and the boy knocked it away, temper still boiling. The hand hung there for a bit, “Fair.”

Five sighed, looking up at the taller man. He finally had the sense to look a little contrite at least.

“It’s only that I’m just not feeling that well today, and I’d just slow you down, you know?” Klaus was hamming up the pitifulness to be sure, but Five let himself look closer. Now that he wasn’t in the dim corner, he could see that Klaus was visibly wavering on his feet, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. 

His annoyance reluctantly shifted to concern, though it was a cautious thing. He grabbed two of Klaus’s necklaces and jerked the man’s head down to his level with just enough force to make a point but do no harm. 

Five pressed a hand to Klaus’s forehead. “You’re hot.” 

“Yeah I am, right Delores?” Klaus tilted to give the mannequin an eyebrow waggle where she sat on her armchair throne, complete with plastic crown. Five swatted him on the shoulder. 

“You probably have what I did,” Five said mournfully, that had taken nearly three days to clear up enough to get around. Small consolation being that maybe it explained Klaus’s mood lately, but that didn’t ease the sting of lost time this was going to cause. The first day it hit had been the worst, and as much as Five was reluctant to say it, having his brother around for it had been a huge comfort. “...maybe I should stay.”

“No!” Klaus cut in, “No no. Please. I’ve felt way worse, trust me, I can take care of myself for today and you go take care of us for the rest of the week, hm?”

Five eyed him warily, the stubborn ball of mistrust and anxiety warring with the need to make sure they survived the rest of the year. 

“Oh and look!” Klaus reached over to one of the nearby crates and pulled out a little square plastic package, chicken flavored ramen, “Chicken noodle soup! See? I’ll be fine.”

“Fine.” Five stepped back slowly and grabbed his favorite jacket from a rack by the stairs. “I’ll be back before sunset, okay?”

“Bon voyage!” Klaus smiled brightly, waving the ramen like a flag, “Have a good day at work, honey!”

The eyeroll in return was practically scripted, and Five hopped up a few stairs before pausing and turning around. 

“Is that possible, by the way?”

“What?”

“Can ghosts possess us?” Five asked, keenly aware as he always was when they brushed the topic that there was a whole ecosystem of beings around them that he could not see. It perturbed him. 

Four shrugged, “Dunno.” 

Vastly unreassured, Five just turned around and left. 

***

Klaus watched the stairway well after Five left, making sure he didn’t return. He felt on edge, all the hair on his arms standing up, but he didn’t look around. He knew what it was, her spirit felt wholly unique. Reginald had a theory that ghosts were just energy living on a plane of existence slightly to the side of their own, and in her last moments Vanya had been just… pure energy. It seemed to have carried over somehow. Amplifying everything. He was half surprised Five couldn’t feel her.

God she was so strong. He could feel her presence invading his own, a high tone starting to ring in his ears. At her worst, unmedicated, she seemed profoundly angry, blind to reason and it mostly just felt like he had his hand on a stove and he couldn’t take it off.

“Liar.” The voice hissed at him, presence leaking through even as the remnants of various chemicals were still in his bloodstream.

“I know.” Klaus just breathed out a sigh and shook out another pill into his palm.

***

Down an extra pair of hands, Five had retooled his plans for the day on the fly. 

While he had been given an extensive education on math and physics, his engineering knowledge was not up to a high enough standard to be useful now. They needed heat and he needed to figure out the best way to accomplish that. The fire was passable, but wood was not easy to come by in the city and not easy to transport when they did find it. They could take a car out of town, but the streets were so clogged with rubble that it was unreliable. Maybe they could just go… south, try to outrun the cold, but who knew what else would be out there and the city was plentiful with resources if you knew where to find them.

So, information was needed, and where better for that than the library. For the first time the destruction seemed to have been beneficial, collapsing the building in such a way that it protected the books inside from most of the weather and fires. It did make the building hell to get into, but Five was small, stubborn, and agile even without the help of his powers.

The state of the place physically hurt him. The fiction section in the left wing was largely still organized, but the floor sloped more dramatically as you proceeded around the circular design into the non-fiction section. Five picked his way over there carefully, stopping only for a second to tuck a copy of Frankenstein into his backpack on a whim, ignoring the tightness in his chest as he did.

Most of the shelves had toppled farther in, leaving the books in huge unmanageable piles. The only saving grace was that each floor had been separated into subjects, meaning he wasn’t completely without guidance on what was in each pile. It still took him until midday to sift for some promising candidates.

He stowed what he could in his bag and made for the climb back up to his exit on the higher levels. The rest he’d have to leave to a later date and hope the building held up long enough to rescue them. 

Passing through the biography section, he saw it laying just slightly apart from the waterfall of its brethren. A single paperback with a face looking up at him.

It wasn’t the first time one of his sister’s faces had come up. They’d practically tripped on a billboard downtown were Allison, dressed like a golden goddess, was cuddling a small bottle of perfume to her face. It was askew on its posts and halfway torn to shreds by the wind, it was clear it wouldn’t last much longer before it eroded entirely. 

He and Klaus had spent the afternoon with it, trading stories back and forth, trying to memorize her face before it was gone. Klaus tried to recount one of her movies even though he clearly only half remembered it. It was pretty clear Klaus had made up the part where Allison fought dinosaurs with Sandra Bullock but he wasn’t bothered that much. He was going to treasure the mental image of his sister toting a bandolier full of shotguns for a long time.

He hunkered down on the slightly sloped floor, picking the tome up and shaking the dust out of its pages, then stared at the cover. There she was, little Vanya, about the same age he’d last seen her. He was sure the portrait looked sad to most people who saw it, everyone seemed to read her wrong, but not Five. He just saw the slow simmering fire in her young eyes. 

“Oh, Vanya,” A smirk bloomed on his face, “You actually did it.”

He didn’t even have to know what was in the book. Context and the author’s name spoke volumes and he easily recognized its existence for what it truly was. This book was a mountain sized middle finger to their father.

Reginald Hargreeves had not entirely been a hermit to the outside world, but he had jealously curated every shred of information that left that house, and in completely bizarre ways. Some things he should seem to care about the public knowing, for instance about him literally purchasing 7 children, he talked about freely. Other things though, seemingly inconsequential things, he kept under lock and key. He was especially careful of any information on their day to day life, schedules, education and the like. He’d bought and closed newspapers for attaining small shreds of information on their lives without his authorization. 

So for Vanya to speak on it at all... god, Five hoped she sent Reginald a signed copy. 

He checked the publishing information on the inside cover, noting it was printed 5 years ago, and flipped over to read the back blurb, not expecting to see another portrait. His smirk dimmed. He wasn’t sure what he expected, seeing her gave him that same disquieted feeling as it had when he’d first seen the adult versions of his other siblings. It was difficult to reconcile the children to the people they grew into, but what was harder, was seeing the fire in Vanya’s eyes so dampened. It was still there, he thought, he hoped, but it was so low. 

Five would like to say he’d become aware of their father’s machinations on his own, that his independence had been fully formed from day one, but he could take no credit for that spark. That had been all Vanya. There was many a quiet, illicit conversation between them, back before they even had their second names, where Vanya could speak her mind freely. 

She was an observant, astute, free thinker, even then, questioning everything. Vanya toed the line eventually, her movement and choices enforced more strictly than anyone else’s. The talks continued, but gradually lost their teeth as she became more nervous. As Vanya’s disobedience was quashed, almost as if compensating directly for it, Five’s roared up. 

When he’d proposed some more radical ideas at thirteen, Vanya begged him to stop. She wanted it to just remain talk and nothing else. She was afraid of their father and Five could understand why in her case. Vanya had nothing to bargain with, Five had much more leverage. The old man had an unmistakable soft spot for him, and they’d recently debuted on a global stage. He was a public face now, with an important power and miles of potential, he had room to push.

Besides, Five had thought, what was the worst that could happen? Klaus was a hellion all the time and all he got were restrictions, lectures, and mandatory extra training, and he seemed to be doing well enough. Hell, Five had _wanted_ more training. 

So one day he stabbed a knife into the dinner table and… well, that hadn’t ended great.

Looking down at the picture with her eyes so dim, Five wondered if Vanya had found anyone else to talk to after that. Guilt twisted in his chest.

As if compelled, Five sat down on the nearest clear patch of floor, and read. 

***

Five was a quick reader and only stopped once to pull some food and water out of his pack, chewing through the first half of the book greedily. The stories inside were not flattering, to say the least, but Five found them fair. Vanya spoke the truth as she saw it, and when you were largely invisible in your own household, you saw a lot of things. 

The first section was an overview, but after that, she broke the book into sections dedicated to each of them, predictably in number order. She wasn’t unkind in her explanations at all, couching criticisms in gentling explanations for their behavior, not vilifying anyone surprisingly not even their father. 

Vanya depicted him as a lonely man, emotionally stunted, and perhaps incapable of love at all. She didn’t forgive him, she brutally described the effect he’d had on all of them to the best of her knowledge, but she seemed to pity him. Generous of her.

He soaked in the information, harsh as it was, he was starving to know more about who his family had become after he was gone. Other than inconsequential stories, Klaus had been extremely tight lipped about most everything. The man could talk for hours and say absolutely nothing.

The chapters on his siblings were enlightening, each laying out nasty arguments, things told in confidence, and Vanya’s brutally honest estimation of how their father’s influence had damaged them each in their own unique ways. 

Luther trying to protect himself from harm by pretending they hadn’t been abused at all, only making him lean harder into his fanaticism. Diego, deeply insecure, forever second, lashing out at everything around him because of his own perceived shortcomings (wow that probably didn’t go over well). Allison, starved for affection, fleeing to stardom because she was sure no one would love her unless she pretended to be someone else.

Five flipped to the next page revealing the chapter title and paused. Klaus. 

It hadn’t seemed like any of them had been happy, and they had broken apart so easily after Ben died. It wasn’t a happy portrait. Reading what he had, he wondered with a bone deep frustration if Klaus had though he’d been protecting him from this somehow. The thought rankled badly, did he think he couldn’t handle it? What gave Klaus the right to withhold this from him? They were his family too.

Maybe reading this was an invasion of privacy, maybe he shouldn’t, but right then with the burn of everything held back from him, Five felt justified in continuing. 

This chapter didn’t start like the ones previous. Vanya had taken a straightforward approach with the others, leaving the stories linear in time, but this one, she’d chosen to start with an emphasized blurb. Almost reading like a disclaimer, not for Vanya, but for Klaus. 

For the others Vanya had laid out explanations of their father’s influence and hypothetical mental states along with the stories they were referencing, but Vanya wrote that she felt the need to explain Klaus up front. She explained that without this, the stories may feel to harsh or unforgivable. 

Five gripped the pages, not liking where this was going. Vanya and Klaus had barely meshed at all in his time, with Klaus operating at level 11 and Vanya at a 2, they just slid away from each other like oil and water but there hadn’t been any hate. For her to front load so many excuses, it made Five reluctant to turn the page. 

By Vanya’s accounting, Klaus had been a gentle, loving kid early on, eager to please their father. Unfortunately for him, it became obvious quickly that Reginald was unsatisfied with the pace of his improvement and because of that, perhaps it was accurate to say Klaus received the harshest treatment of any of them. He was given twice as much training, twice as much work, expected to know a multitude of languages fluently. All goals that Klaus had honestly tried to meet at first, but could never quite hit the mark, and found himself met with constant disapproval. 

Reginald tried experimental exercises to try to strengthen his powers, though none of them were ever sure on the specifics. All they knew was that Klaus would come back from them looking ironically like death. All this paired with such an early and deeply intimate knowledge of mortality at a young age, Vanya guessed that it changed him, maybe even broke him. 

_‘So’,_ Vanya justified, _‘when he fell so hard into his many vices, none of us even objected at first.’_

Five read numbly, slower than he had been as Vanya unrolled a list of hospital visits, rehab stints, thefts, arrests, relapses, and overdoses as the sun climbed its way down the sky. He finished out the chapter without moving an inch from his spot, water forgotten, and slowly closed the book up, making the arduous climb down from the building without really thinking about it at all. 

His mind was racing with everything else, a bevy of odd comments and behaviors taking a new tone now. His slow walk turned brisk, then into a jog as he neared the station. He skipped every third stair as he descended, landing at the bottom with a thud and a puff of ash. 

“Klaus?” He called, voice remarkably even for as high up in his throat his heart was thudding. Nothing but his own voice echoed back, the place was completely empty.

A thought occurred to him and he moved over to the supply corner, tugging out the comparatively small crate they had been keeping the medical supplies in and popping open the lid. It was half as full as it was supposed to be, and Five hurriedly rummaged through. Medical equipment, bandaids, gauze, antibiotics, extremely low grade pain medications but even those were low. 

He sunk down onto the floor in front of it. Everything else was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five: Klaus got in trouble all the time and he's fine!  
> Me, a voice behind a curtain: HAAAAAAAAAHHHH.
> 
> Thank you again everyone for all the comments they are just SUCH FUEL. Turns out I'm having a bit of art block right now (which sucks since I've got a monster commission queue) and your comments have been keeping me buoyed up and out of the dark place. Infinite thanks.


	7. Day 83, Part 2

### Apocalypse: Day 83, Part 2

Klaus had a skip to his step by the time he hustled back into their homey little hovel hole, greatly pleased with himself. He’d made it back before sundown, though it had been a close thing. His little operation, brilliant as the idea had been, was perhaps more work than he’d been planning for. Who knew it would be so hard to pry through three doors into a police station’s evidence locker with only a crowbar? He had managed it though, scraped palms, a detour for some bolt cutters, and all of the force of his newly required muscles but it was worth it. Especially since he couldn’t feel a lick of that pain anymore. Not only was life bliss, but the city was blessedly, wholly silent for the first time since he’d arrived. 

He’d taken a detour on the way home for several reasons. Firstly he’d left the evidence locker with a lunch cooler filled to bursting with every flavor of sin available in the city and they needed a new home closer to the subway. In a stroke of genius, he found one for them hilariously in a bombed out dry cleaners on 420 E. Lamar. He’d be proud of himself for a few weeks on that one.

He, of course, sampled a few, before he followed the yellow brick road back home, leading to his second detour. He found a large hill of rubble and climbed it, precarious and stupid to do, but he wanted to see. He wanted to see just… vast amounts of no ones. Three city blocks stretched out around him with nothing to see and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this amazingly alone. Maybe when he was really young, if the cameras watching their every move didn’t count. No ghosts, no Vanya whispering her sweet dark nothings into his ear, nothing.

It was amazing, especially since the drugs in his system were allowing him to skirt around the circumstances of that vast nothingness. He stayed there until he couldn’t anymore, reluctantly chased away by the sun’s progress in the sky, making him descend his mountain back to something slightly more like reality. There was still one someone in the world who he wasn’t yet ready to be free of. 

He was back in the subway station, shoes kicked off his feet into the far corner, and rummaging through their growing tape collection when the clacking of the beaded curtain signaled Five’s entrance. See, Five, it wasn’t just kitschy fluff, it was an _alarm_ system. 

Feeling floaty and mellow, he wiggled a Stevie Nicks tape out from under a towering stack and popped it into the player. 

Klaus was vaguely aware of Five walking the perimeter of the room, slow, hands in his pockets, but the concentration was slippery to hold onto, his mind only really interested in inspecting the unintentional room of funhouse mirrors he’d created.

“Seems like you’ve made a miraculous recovery,” Five said from behind him, sounding far away. For a second he considered that maybe he shouldn’t have sampled quite so deeply. This stuff was _strong,_ thankfully the concern floated away as quickly as it came. He was by far the most high he’d been since he’d gotten in this predicament and he intended to stay this way. 

“Mm, yeah. What?” He inspected himself in the mirror and scrunched his nose at the state of himself, hair an impenetrable rats nest. When left to its own devices Klaus’s hair was as straight as he was, which meant not at all. It had a tendency to grow upwards in chaotic curls that required constant attention (also much like him), and Armageddon had not lent him a lot of time to dedicate to that. He could do better. He diverted over to his bed.

“You were sick.” 

Oh yeah, whoops. He’d forgotten. He plopped down on the carpet in front of his bed and blinked over at the teenager, trying to play it cool, “Oh. Huh. All good now. Chicken ramen for the soul and all that.”

Five was a few feet away, standing over him, unreadable. 

“Klaus?” He said lowly, almost even, “If you needed help you _would_ let me know, right?”

Four paused, mid rummage, box held between his bare feet, and looked over at the teen, suddenly overcome with a wave of affection so strong it choked him up. He was _so_ glad that the little monster came back to life, not in the bad way either but the good way of coming back. The one where he was never dead to begin with. Wow, this stuff was strong. 

Hm, judging by Five’s reaction, he _may_ have just said all that out loud. Or maybe he said something else, because the look on Five’s face went from surprise very quickly to deep exasperation. 

“Fucking pointless.” Five hissed and stalked off to a chair across the room.

Klaus did the only thing he could do, calling after him, “Language!” 

For some reason Five kicked a table before he sat down, arms solidly crossed. Klaus just watched it passively, poor kid going through puberty and the apocalypse at the same time. Rough gig. Ah well. He fished a pair of scissors out. 

***

Five had made a strategic retreat to the chair, putting as much distance between them as he was willing to right then. Klaus was beyond discussion at this point and, frankly, Five didn’t feel much like it right then either. His whole mind was a vast universe of conflicting feelings. Anger that Klaus would do something this risky without seemingly much care at all. Shame that he’d been so stupid he hadn’t noticed this earlier, it was so fucking obvious when he actually looked but he’d been so blinded by his goals and the circumstance that he’d just ascribed it to Klaus being Klaus. Betrayal at all the things that were being held back from him, on top of hurt that Klaus seemed to view him as incapable of handling them, that he thought him to be so _fragile_. At the center of it all, like the yawning black hole powering the whole system: Fear. 

After he’d come back to an empty home or whatever this hole in the ground was, he’d went directly back out, tamping down on the worst whispering voices in his mind unless they were useful. Klaus hadn’t made himself hard to find, he was never a subtle sort of person, and he was singing what Five only knew vaguely as songs from the Wizard of Oz as he swayed on top of a deeply unstable looking pile of rubble, pipes, and glass.

Not willing to try to climb up and risk setting off some sort of avalanche that would get them both killed, Five hung back in the shadow of a building and seethed. It became obvious very quickly how gone the man was. The riskiness of it, the lies to get there, and the added insult that he had the gall to look so _happy_ while Five was worried out of his mind… It was probably best for both of them that Five had to wait the hour until Klaus finally made his way back home, narrowly avoiding falling into a jagged nest of rebar on the way down. 

He waited there for fifteen more minutes after he was sure the idiot was alive, just to wait until his hands stopped shaking in anger.

He picked aggressively at the padded sleeve of the armchair, ripping the edge of the seam up. Klaus had settled across the room in front of two mirrors, and was methodically taking scissors to his hair, humming to the Stevie Nicks album crackling out of the speakers like he didn’t have a care in the world. 

Maybe Five should stop him from trying to do something with a sharp object while high, but a petty part of him was in control right now, and he let it go. Let him mangle his hair, he deserved it, he’d stop him if (maybe after) he chopped a bit of his ear off. 

Frustratingly though, it seemed he was going to be deprived of even that much, as the man seemed to be working with some sense of baffling competency, or at least a system to it. 

“Should you really be cutting your own hair?” Five snipped out petulantly, not content to stay silent. 

“I always do. I have to or all the kids would laugh at me at Ghost Prom. I can cut yours next if you want.” Klaus offered, snipping the shears noisily in invitation. 

“Absolutely not.” Five response was knee jerk, especially since he had to glare through his bangs as he said it. They were getting to be a constant annoyance, always in his eyes but too short to keep out of them in any way. Just another thing to add on to the pile of frustration. He was ready to stuff them in a hat and let it grow out for the rest of eternity.

It wasn’t easy to maintain that level of emotion for long, and despite his best efforts, he found himself mellowing to a low simmer of malcontent. Fatigued as he was, watching Klaus happily hack at his own hair for the next half hour, he found himself becoming begrudgingly impressed at the level of finesse the man exhibited while so obviously altered. He guessed he shouldn’t be, all evidence pointed to the fact that Klaus had been mostly functioning for over 15 years now at some level of inebriation. Perhaps he wasn’t functioning to a normal societal standard, but he was operating at a standard Klaus seemed to find acceptable, hell, even up to Five’s standards the last two months.

In that light, Five found himself recontextualizing every interaction, every supply run, every helpful idea Klaus had provided since this had all started. There had been certain slip-ups, unnecessary risks, and miscalculations he could blame on whatever drugs had been involved at the time, but on the whole, everything had been _working_. 

Klaus had seemed okay, and while the teen would never admit it under threat of torture, Klaus’s temperament had been an absolute life preserver and in his darkest moments he had leaned on it heavily. It was extremely hard to brood for hours on end about the fate of the world when Klaus was in the middle of reciting a decade’s worth of trash television next to you. 

He’d often wondered why it didn’t seem to be affecting Klaus as deeply as he imagined it should have. It was affecting him, Five could tell when he got a peak through the gaps of Klaus’s farce, but he couldn’t imagine being as close to it as Klaus had been and still being able to function so quickly after.

Now it seemed like he had his answer, perhaps if only in part. It was the literal end of the world, if the drugs were helping Klaus through this what right did Five have to deprive him of that. Especially when Five benefited from them second hand. 

Five physically shook his head at his own train of thought, catching himself almost advocating for his brother’s continued drug use. That was insane... right? Drugs were extremely damaging, life threatening, they addled your brain and made you useless to society. 

He scrambled to pull up all the things he knew about them and realize quickly that all of the information he knew had come directly from their father. While he had painfully learned not to disregard Reginald’s wisdom out of reflex, he still knew everything that came out of the man’s mouth to be possible propaganda for his own personal crusade.

Whenever the topic of drugs came up with him, they had been in the context of crime, of harm, always in the darkest light. They’d been instructed, of course, on the drug trade as a possible adversary, someone they’d run across and have to stop. They’d actually done so a couple times to shine up the Mayor’s Anti-Drug agenda. 

Hell, in their initial PR push, they’d been part of a “say no to drugs” ad campaign that ran in various tween magazines. Five recalled with a wince that the whole thing had nearly been a bust as Klaus couldn’t keep a straight face, constantly falling into laughter as a man dressed as a marijuanna leaf toddled around the scene. They’d all known why then, of course, well except Luther who seemed to be the only one unaware of the weed smell around the house at the time. 

It begged the question of how accurate his knowledge was in a practical application and was he even capable of judging things fairly? He’d been fine with it when it was just weed and alcohol, like Vanya had said, they’d _all_ been fine with it at first, thinking it was just another attention grab. A phase.

Five had pulled the thread out of the chair arm all the way to the seat, white stuffing exposed. He scanned the room for Klaus, nerves jumping unnecessarily, as if the man could have put himself in mortal peril in the fifteen minutes without supervision. He just found him splayed out on his bed, lazily chewing on a piece of jerky with his eyes closed. 

Sitting there, in the last shreds of light of the day, Five had the feeling like something more dramatic should have taken place here. Like knowing a problem should immediately facilitate its solution. The next step should be clear to him, and yet it wholly wasn’t. Just a few months ago he was so sure of his actions and now he was terrified to move wrong and bring the rickety stability they’d built down around them. He didn’t know if he’d survive that again.

On instinct, he pulled his bag up next to the chair and pulled out one of the engineering textbooks and then, carefully tucked inside, Vanya’s book, highlighted in the glow of a small reading light clipped to the top of the textbook. 

He stared at Vanya’s face for a long time, until the last dregs of light disappeared from the mirrors and the reading light was the only glow in the room. These were the times when he would dearly like to talk to Vanya. Or perhaps, so out of his depth, it might be better to listen to Vanya for a change. 

The book was as good as he was going to get, so, in a desperate bid for understanding, he flipped the book back open to Klaus’s section and read it again.

*** 

In our early adult life, I only encountered Klaus a handful of times. Even though he technically never moved out, Klaus was so rarely in the borough that housed the Academy and my apartment at the time that he felt like he was as far away as Allison. We mostly only had confirmation of his well being when he wandered back to the Academy like a stray cat seeking food, clothes, or money. 

As is the nature of our city, I saw him in passing here and there, on the subway mostly. I wish the exchanges were better, but they often only felt like a brief encounter with a tornado. Klaus swept through, was loud, energetic, and only seemed to want you to understand how great his life was going thank-you-very-much, and then excuses and he was gone. We had never been close, but each time I was left feeling more and more a stranger to him and vice versa. 

I was resigned to a reality of distance between us, contacting him was near impossible with any speed. You could leave a note at the Academy and maybe he would get it soon or six months from then, there was no telling. He never stayed anywhere long enough to have a phone number. We didn’t even meet up on our birthday anymore, the tradition tapering off because of various excuses. So I more or less gave up.

Klaus had other ideas. A few months after we turned 21, Klaus showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, asking for a place to sleep. This, it would turn out, would be my first introduction to the cycle he had fallen into. 

He would describe it as “staying with friends” but I eventually came to realize he was dressing his homelessness up as a nomadic fairy tale adventure. He did this with everything one could consider negative, with surprisingly adept sidesteps or pre-planned smokescreens. I could never tell if he believed his own stories or not, but the reality of it was that he often needed a place to stay and, for a while, I was happy to have him in my apartment.

He never stayed more than a few days at most, the same chaotic event as he had always been, and at first I felt happy to have him there. He made a mess, ate my food, he scared my neighbors enough to complain to the landlord, and he interrupted my practice constantly, but he also left me post-its with jokes on them or little drawings of aliens abducting our father in soap on my mirror, we painted each others nails and performed an exaggerated version of the sleepovers we were only able to see in teen movies after we were fully grown and out of the house. Once, after a rough rehearsal he even offered to sabotage my director’s car in what I’m still not sure was a joke or not, but it made me feel so much better at the time. 

It was nice… until it wasn’t. 

After a few visits over a winter, no more than a dozen days in total, I made the mistake of giving him a key. Klaus started arriving more and more high, less considerate and more desperate. Things started disappearing, cash, small things. I hid the few valuables I had and placed rehab pamphlets in their usual place, one prominently in the medicine cabinet where my medication usually sat, a commonly taken item. The thefts stopped after that… for a while.

It broke my heart when my violin disappeared. 

I missed rehearsal and spent the day going to every pawn shop I could find in the phone book looking for it with no success and crawled back into bed that night and cried myself to sleep. The next morning I pulled myself out of bed and found my violin sitting on my kitchen table, safe in its case with a post-it note between the strings. It was just a one word apology with a sloppy numeral 4 at the bottom. I noticed the rehab pamphlet in my bathroom cabinet was missing later that day. Feeling raw and betrayed, I changed my locks.

I didn’t see him for another two months when I got a call from the local hospital telling me Klaus had been admitted for a drug overdose. I saw there the cycle that would form the next few years of his life at its lowest point. Klaus was there and unconscious when I arrived, he still had an identification band from the rehab center on his wrist. It didn’t take. The attending nurse tried to explain to Diego and I, the two numbers apparently listed as his emergency contacts, that this was a common story for addicts. They get out of rehab and their tolerance isn’t what it had been before, they try to take what they’re used to and they overdose. By the time she was done advising us on next steps Klaus had apparently snuck out of the ER.

I found out later he removed us from his emergency contacts. I never knew why, if he was embarrassed or angry, there was no way of telling, but I took it as the request for distance it seemed to be and I let him go. 

To this day I don’t know if it was the right thing to do. I get information in dribs and drabs, but only second hand. He went through that cycle three more times. Two more hospital visits and then an arrest. To all our surprise our Father exerted some pressure and had the arrest dismissed by the next business day. The second arrest was not treated as kindly. Reginald refused to pay his bail and left him in prison for three months until his trial date rolled around. 

At the hearing it really became clear what his intentions were. He had his lawyer come down and get the arrest dismissed again “in consideration of Klaus’s heroic contributions to the community”. I swear it was more because he didn’t want his own record sullied by it than concern for Klaus. Either way, as in exchange for clemency, Klaus was released into Reginald’s care and required to live in the Academy for the next six months. That went about as well as expected.

I only found out about the arrest and jail time after he’d been released, when Luther called to tell me that Klaus had appropriated my space with a sledgehammer, knocking down the wall separating our childhood rooms. Luther had been apologetic, offering for Mom to make up one of the unoccupied bedrooms for me to replace it. It was a sweet thought, but sadly hopeful, like he expected me to move back home any day now. 

Klaus lasted a month there before disappearing again, Reginald covered for his absence rather than admit he couldn’t control his own son, and thus the cycle continued. 

I dread calls about Klaus. I’d like to think that some day he’ll make peace with what’s been done to him, to us, and he’ll come out the other side of this. For now, I just know that as long as he’s haunted by his past, I will have to dread the calls, because eventually that call is going to be the last one about him I will ever receive. 

  
***

Five looked up from the book. He could hear Klaus murmuring in his sleep, as he usually did, snippets of conversation. They seemed innocuous tonight, a pleasant change from the typical frantic rambling.

It was obvious the drugs helped in a certain kind of light, what that entailed Five didn’t know. If he were to accept that, it brought up a whole new set of issues. They had drugs now, they could probably find more if they made an effort, but what happened after that? When they ran out. First of the kinds they could trust, and then what, move on to more dangerous versions? In the meantime, what of this cycle that always seem to lead to harm? Or the longer term effects of use? Overdose? What would they do then? Could he even do anything? 

What if. What if. What if.

Five gripped his infuriatingly long bangs, lost in the dark, the tiny curved light clipped to the top of his book like an angler fish, drawing him into the pages only to eat him alive. He flipped the page just to be done with the chapter, forgetting what the next would be and was confronted by his own name. 

He’d been eager to see what she’d written about him before but now, he didn’t know if he could take her being disappointed in him. Angry at him for leaving maybe, for leaving her alone there because he couldn’t just let something go. He could relate suddenly. An idiot child here in the apocalypse who can’t even compel his own brother to stop from chasing something that was going to harm him.

With a noise of discuss he moved to flip past his chapter before remembering halfway through that the next one was Ben’s, and he had no desire to depress himself further that day. He’d stopped nearly at the end, and a paragraph caught his eye. 

_‘Five was confident, intelligent, the holder of powers nearly without limit. Everything I wasn’t, but most importantly, he was my best friend. I looked up to him then and I do now. Whenever I feel lost or afraid I think back on him, on what he must be going through, because there’s no doubt in my mind he succeeded in time travel. I don’t know where he is, or when, I do know he’s doing everything in his power to come home to his family. I just hope we’re all here for him when he manages it. He will. Eventually._

_In a bet between anyone, your choice of global super power, and the very laws of physics themselves combined versus Five, I will always bet on Five.’_

He weakly pushed the light down, not even bothering to wipe away the tears tracking down his face, the feelings consumed by a sudden warmth. Something deep in his soul clicked just then, a rightness slotting into place. 

He was going to win. Failure wasn’t an option. Not only in this, but in everything else.

He wanted the apocalypse never to have happened, for his family to be alive, for Klaus to be safe and healthy and he had the power to do it. He’d change the whole damn world if he had to. These events were not _ifs_ these were _whens_ , and he refused to do them alone.

He’d get the information he needed and he’d drag the manchild kicking and screaming to health if he had to. He _was_ going to fix the world, who was even going to try to stop him?

***

“Ma’am, the Predictors have just reported a change…”

The Handler smiled at the red folder that had just been meekly handed to her and took in a long drag of her cigarette. She knew the case number by heart of course, and she felt like she had an inkling of what was inside, a sharp smile already growing on her face before she skimmed the documents within.

She’d almost be pleased if she hadn’t been so annoyed. 

“Well, go get them to cancel Dot’s retirement party, seems this kid has some fight left in him after all.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This next section for me is like trying to thread a needle in the dark. We’re working at the extreme edges of these characterizations, I have to tread carefully to make sure it stays in character, and the boys sometimes just have completely different ideas on how it should go than I do. So I wanted to wait to post until I had the next two chapters mostly written in case I had to make any sweeping changes (again) cause I’ve come at this from three different angles so far. 
> 
> So good news is I’ll have the next bit up as soon as I edit it! In the meantime I have a job interview coming up this week, wish me luck! <3


	8. Day 88

Apocalypse: Day 88

Five had every intention of enacting his plan after a week of careful research and preparation but Klaus only gave him funny enough, five days. 

The plan had been this: first, carefully collect information from library to check his assumed knowledge against other sources. Between the lack of organization and his vague knowledge on the subject, it took him the whole first day to narrow down a small hoard of resources. It was all too common to find books that only focused on the overarching problems of addiction with only solutions his father would have been pleased with. They all emphasized punishment as the default, which Five doubted the efficacy of to start with and had no interest of applying in his case. Eventually, he was able to find books more focused on rehabilitation, as well as several medical primers for poison control, and an index of both illegal and legal drugs.

He consumed the information when Klaus was asleep, something that thankfully (though troublingly) had been easier on the man lately. 

Next, he essentially set up a sting operation for his brother. He had to, he knew the man when pressed wouldn’t voluntarily tell him everything so he had to come into this confrontation with as much information as he could. This meant setting up times where he could tempt Klaus into giving himself away while he could safely observe, which mostly just meant he only set up solo ventures for both of them, leaving Klaus to his own devices.

He didn’t know what he’d expected, maybe at least a passing attempt at the task Klaus was assigned, but he took to the temptation perhaps too well. Most of the time he went to the location he was supposed to go to, but from there the effort Klaus put in was up to the whims of the day, and the whims usually said more drugs.

The upside of this was that Five became quickly acquainted with most of Klaus’s stashes around their home and on day three solved the mystery of where the drugs had all come from. Clever bastard had broken into the evidence locker of the central precinct. He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed. 

Klaus, at least, seemed to be enjoying himself, too much so if Five had to guess. In their first months here Klaus had been limited to what was available from the hospital and whatever he could find while Five was glued next to him, all theoretically lower risk choices if he had to guess. Now though, Klaus had the full breadth of choices that had been lost to him for three months, and that access seemed to have led to excess. 

He was mostly useless one day, and hyper focused and busy the next to make up for it. The third day was almost a disaster, whatever he had tried that day hit him badly, and when Five caught up with Klaus he found him collapsed under an awning shaking and muttering to himself. He had been so close to breaking his cover and running up to the man to see if he could help, especially after he threw up, but it seemed to pass quickly, leaving Four shaking but otherwise alright. Five watched as Klaus retrieved whatever had been in his bag that day and chucked it as far as he could into the ruins of the city.

Five had been hopeful on seeing that, but the feeling was squashed before the end of the day when Klaus rounded back later in the day and spent an hour finding the small bag again in the rubble. Discouraged, the next day Five detoured back to the fire station to retrieve several vials of Narcan from an abandoned fire engine. They now lived in his back pocket every day just in case.

Watching was soul crushing work, all day spent watching the only person he had left in the world abruptly taking a nose dive Five wasn’t sure he could recover from. His nights were given to hours of reading with only a few hours of sleep in between. Five ended every day emotionally and physically exhausted, propelled only by the power of his conviction. Nothing else mattered.

As much as he’d like to act sooner, he’d learned from his past mistakes and was wary of diving in half cocked. He was not only messing around with his brother’s wellbeing, but also his _trust_. There was more than one way to lose Klaus, even if they were literally the last two people on earth, and he wasn’t willing to accept any of those possibilities. 

So, caution. Well, until day five. 

That day Five was supposed to be scouting out new areas, and Klaus was supposed to be stripping a small neighborhood of everything useful, neither of which was actually happening. Klaus had seemed to be making an attempt at first, going through a few two story brownstones and coming out with a few armfuls here and there. Five settled in a street away with a set of binoculars, and hoped the trend would last. 

For a while it did, enough so that Five nearly nodded off watching the tall man weave from home to home and back to the shopping cart he’d brought with him. Then, after an hour, Five noticed he’d seen Klaus wander into a house but hadn’t seen him leave. A tightness formed in his chest immediately, as it had all week, but Five coaxed it back to stillness. The house shouldn’t take long to search, the back half of it was collapsed in, maybe he’d just stopped to eat?

Half an hour passed, then an hour...

Images of finding Klaus collapsed only a few days before crowded in, of him not paying attention and the building shifting down on top of him. What if he was dying in there and Five just missed it, what if he couldn’t yell out, not that he’d know to given that Five had been spying on him without his knowledge. That would be a sorry end, dying because your own brother was too busy invading your privacy to help you.

He cracked at an hour fifteen, darting across the block and into the house with no sense to his actions by the time he got there, flying up the stoop and into the front room of the house. He was greeted with the sight of Klaus sitting cross-legged on the couch, sipping a three month old energy drink, smiling straight at him. 

Five had run straight into a trap. There was only one doorway leading into the building and Klaus was perched right in front of it, waiting. 

“Why are you following me, Five?” 

Shit. 

***

Klaus sipped his drink with one pinky out, exceedingly pleased with himself as Five stood trapped in the door. 

He hadn’t been sure at first, thinking he’d just been getting a bit paranoid, maybe he’d just seen a ghost here or there, but that seemed unlikely. He’d kept himself drugged to the gills since the past week. Not a single ghost, not even Vanya, just blessed, blessed solitude. Eliminating that option was out, it only left one possible human shaped shadow. 

Five had been subtle enough, utilizing all the skills they’d been taught as children, but Klaus had the paranoia and instincts one could really only gain by being homeless for a decade, ducking from police and creeps alike. Something had changed in the last week with Five, then all of a sudden wanting to split up? It only took a little extra attention after that and, yup, Klaus clocked Five on day three.

The teen straightened, seemingly trying to regain some dignity but Klaus caught what it really was. A movement to distract from his back hand, which seemed to be tucking something back into his jacket, an item Klaus knew well. He could identify one of those white and red syringes from half a block away. Magical rescue medication for the discerning overdoser, the defibrillator and those little sticks of life were old friends of his. His ambulance pals always stuffed a few in his pockets anytime they released him back into the wild, though he often ended up using them on others more than others used them on him.

The sight of one in Five’s hand meant he’d messed up somewhere, the jig was finally up. Counter-intuitively, it brought Klaus some calm, and he let himself float down into that black place in his heart he didn’t let out to see the sun very often. This had all been a stupid endeavor anyway, it was always going to end up like this. It was nice getting to feel normal for a bit, he guessed, but back to the grind of belittlement and mistrust. He was sure it would sting a little bit more since it would be a literal child telling him what a failure he was, but hell, he wasn’t averse to a little pain. 

“What finally gave me away, huh?” He jibed, smile bright and sharp. “Tell me, I’m _dying_ to know.”

Five gave him a dirty look at that for whatever reason, but reached back into his backpack to retrieve a small paperback Klaus recognized oh so well. 

Klaus couldn’t help but collapse into laughter. The poetic justice, he spends the week avoiding the girl and she gets him anyway. She was probably standing over his shoulder right then gloating, not that he could tell. 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Five asked lowly, waving the book in front of him like a priest at a pulpit, “About this, any of this? How bad everything got?”

Unrepentant, Klaus shrugged, “Which part? You want me to tell you that we were a complete failure as a family or that I, in particular, so unbelievably ‘damaged’ by my daddy that I have no choice but to drown myself in drugs?” He held a hand to his head like the most proper of fainting ladies, enjoying how the escalated drama seemed to be gritting against Five’s nerves. He leaned into it, hoping that not only he could hear it but Vanya as well, “That’s all so rich. Have you even considered that the world was always going to be trash, that people tell you to chase this thing and that for enlightenment and fulfillment when it’s all bullshit? We all will die, everyone we love will die, and even the world will die, _has_ died, and we all end up in the same place.”

Five’s expression fell, dimmed and half lidded. Good. He was always going to end up hating him, might as well just get it all over with now instead of dragging it out on the both of them. 

“Maybe the only real way to be happy is this? Maybe I’m just a step ahead of you all and you need to catch up with _me_ , hm?” Klaus unwound his legs and slid off the couch, wanting to leave. The one exit had been great for an ambush but the walls were starting to press in now, making his heart race and his palms sweat. Time to go. 

Unfortunately, his legs felt like rubber and as soon as he tried to put weight on them they buckled, but Five was there, smaller frame keeping him from face planting in a dusty coffee table. The boy was suddenly close and intense, superficially all stern reproach, but under there was a glimmer of something brighter, hope maybe. Its presence made Klaus irrationally uncomfortable.

He leaned in and patted the kid on the cheek, “Relax, Five, it’s not the-- end of the world or anything.” Klaus wheezed out the second half of the sentence around a laugh, detached Five from himself carelessly and headed outside. 

The little terror followed, apparently having found his voice, “Would you be serious for a single second, Four? You could die!”

Klaus practically skipped down the front stoop, “I’m harder to kill than you’d think!” He sing-songed the response, fishing out a lighter from his coat, “Would it be the worst thing anyway?”

Huge downside of an argument with a teleporter, you could usually never leave the argument unless they were done. So as he walked away he was prepared to stop when Five inevitably cut off his exit route, what he hadn’t been expecting was to be suddenly hit in the back of the head with a blunt object. The force of it nearly made him trip over his own feet, but it did what it was intended to do and he turned around. 

Sitting on the cracked pavement behind him was the little paperback, Vanya’s portrait fluttering up at him in the wind. He traced it back to its owner, still standing at the top of the stoop, shaking in rage and... Damnit.

“Yes!” Five’s voice cracked, eyes bright with forming tears, “It _would_ be the worst you asshole.”

In the light of day, the spike of adrenaline starting to fade, Klaus’s surety wilted. “Five…”

“Is that what you want?” Five shook his head, voice gritting out through his teeth, “To die? To get away from here? To leave me here alone?” 

By instinct he was moving to deny it, but it only managed to come out of him in a series of unconvincing noises and head shakes. Part of him was suddenly desperate to smooth this back over, to bring this back to some peaceful equilibrium, but another darker part hated the look Five was giving him. The look that expected something of Klaus he could never in a million years live up to. He wanted to quash that hope down to nothing so it couldn’t hurt either of them anymore. 

“I need—“ Five halted, angry at his own cracking voice, “ I can’t do this without you.”

Klaus knew without a doubt that he could. He’d probably be better without his dead weight.

“ _Please_.” The word krept out of the teen with a deep desperation he’d never once heard from his brother, and it was a sword in what was left of Klaus’s heart. Like a complete coward, Klaus looked away from him, fingers fidgeting with the lighter he hadn’t got a chance to use, casting around for any sort of escape.

His eyes landed on Vanya’s portrait. The book had settled, halfway open on the pavement, the pages bent harshly. His sister looked up at him sullenly, with judgement. Had she always looked so sad? 

She had been the last time he saw her, before the concert hall. He’d brushed past her on the way back to the Academy after a bender, her skeeze of a boyfriend at her side. The two had just left after a huge fight with the family, though he hadn’t known that at the time. After Luther had shut mom off Klaus had buried himself as deep in delirium as he could and hadn’t come back home until then. 

Vanya had looked absolutely broken, red faced, tears still wet on her cheeks. For a second that felt like years in his memory, she’d looked up at him as she’d passed, eyes full with brutal hope, mouth opening just a sliver as if she wanted to say something. It was as if she was expecting him to greet her, to ask her what was wrong, to show some sort of acknowledgment off his sister who was clearly in distress.

He hadn’t. 

Between the come-down, the alcohol to battle his hangover, and the sheer shock of the sight, he hadn’t even been able to string a thought together. He just stepped out of their way, watching as the leech had bundled her up into his shoulder and whisked her out of view.

What if he’d done something then? Before she disappeared for half a week and reappeared a glowing beacon of retribution. What if he’d gone out to coffee with Allison and Vanya like she had suggested a few days before that. What if he had spoken to her … _at all_ the last five years. 

But of course he hadn’t. He’d been too busy drowning himself in manufactured endorphins to care what happened to her. He’d like to blame what happened all on that creep, but in a moment of clarity he knew he’d abandoned Vanya a long time ago, way before she’d given up on him. 

“Fine!” Five declared abruptly after god knows how long. He charged forward, scooping up the book from in front of Klaus’s feet, and checked him with a shoulder on the way by. Klaus let him, struck by the symmetry of his memory so much he was frozen. 

He could let this go now. They’d probably stick together still, but there would be ramifications. Maybe they’d get some rapport back, maybe not, but he’d be free from expectation, just a mascot to Five’s valiant progress though Armageddon. A dancing monkey until Five was free of him in one way or another.

The memory of Vanya’s goddamned hopeful eyes haunted him more effectively than any ghost had, funnily including her own. He didn’t know if he was imagining it now, but he thought, for just a moment, he had seen that look in her unnatural eyes at the concert. A sliver of hope still in there, begging him to do something, but it evaporated when the others ambushed her.

“What,” The word slipped out and he winced at its formation, but he heard it stop Five behind him. This was a stupid fucking idea, this would get him nowhere, “What did you even want from me anyway?”

Five’s voice was admirably even, “Get off the goddamn drugs, Klaus.”

Klaus ground his knuckles into his temples, knowing the words before they came out. This, this was the problem. “It’s not that simple.”

“I know it’s hard,” Five said with a grain of sympathy under the vast frustration, “I’ve been researching on methodology and —“

Four flipped around, his own aggravation slipping back out, “No, it’s— yes it’s hard but. It’s. _Fuck_.” He dared a look back up at the boy. He’d tried to explain this before, in actions mostly, though he had never been able to fully explain it to his siblings. He hadn’t wanted to admit that he was intentionally sabotaging the only useful thing he was bringing to the team. He hadn’t wanted to admit he had been going into missions powerless for years. Afraid they wouldn’t let him participate, that they would blame him for the team’s failures… and then it had just become habit until they all eventually broke apart.

Five had stepped up again, flipping from aggravation to… patience wasn’t it. Persistence. Klaus didn’t know how he’d landed himself into the role of one of Five’s fixations, one of his formulas to be solved, but he obviously wasn’t getting away from it anytime soon. He found himself bristling under the attention, backing up a step. 

“I can help you Klaus, I just need to know whatever it is first,” Five pressed, and Klaus could only meet the words with a sharp laugh, pure warning. 

“ _You_ can help _me_?” He mimicked bitterly, and Five looked offended at the tone.

“I can.”

Four scoffed, “Okay genius, look around you, on this street what do you see?” He stepped back and twirled, palms out and up, at the empty street around them, just rubble and ruined cars, “Nothing, right? Well it’s grand central up here baby. There are so many ghosts on this street that they are packed shoulder to shoulder.”

Five managed to avoid being goaded into looking, but his eyes did flicker there and back. Klaus took the opportunity, stepping in suddenly very close to the teen, rounding and looming over the shorter boy’s shoulder.

“Billions and billions of the dead, Five, you get it? Everyone is dead. _Everyone_ . Men, women, children, all here, terrified, _screaming_ for help. So loud you can’t hear anything, can’t hear yourself breathe, can’t hear yourself think, just the demands. For some reason they think you can help but you can’t, and they do not take no for an answer,” He raised his hands on either side of Five’s face, imitating clawing digits reaching to smother him without actually touching, “When they’re clumped in like this too, they feed off each other’s fear and anger and they lose any intelligence they had. They’re just a hoard of emotion and when they figure out you’re near them, they just _bury_ you. All _so close_ you can’t figure out where your mind ends and theirs begin... and it drives you _crazy._ ”

Five swallowed, looking up at him, “You can see that now?”

“Nope,” Klaus laughed rudely, sweeping back out of Five’s space, “I’m so high I can barely see _you_ right now. This street is so perfectly empty, Five. Feel all this ghost free air! That’s the trick Five, I don’t have some shiny on/off switch like you guys do! Every day of every minute of my life since I was a kid I have been _hounded_ by ghosts, and they do not give a fuck about your life, your schedule, or your privacy. The powers are always on, and the only way to get them to go off is to be utterly, fantastically, high! Then, and only then, can I _sleep_ , Five.”

The teen looked thoughtful, then progressively more uncomfortable, “but… dad said you _conjure_ ghosts. He made it sound like you had a choice.”

“Quelle surprise, Daddy lied to you.” Klaus crowed, clapping, “To be fair, it wasn’t so much lie as omission, and he was always so cagey about his theories on my powers anyway. I _can_ conjure ghosts, that’s how it started when I was a precious tiny little Number Four. Back when I could control it.” 

Klaus wrinkled his nose at the innocent little thing he had been, happy to chat with people who were partially there, precious and trusting, “With enough effort I can usually get them to show up all day long, getting them to _leave_ though… that was an issue. Then my powers grew and well, it was like I was shouting my home address in the middle of creeperville. They just couldn’t get enough of me, can’t blame ‘em, I mean look at me!” The words though comedic, were only coming out manic now, “Oh man, you know all those people who ‘accidentally’ died on our missions? The ones Luther threw out windows or Ben mangled? They fucking haaated us, and when they figured out I could see them… well.” Klaus smiled and clasped his hands like he was remembering an old sweetheart, “well suffice to say I learned how to break into dear father’s liquor cabinet that night. Smash glass in case of ghosts, y’know?”

Five swallowed, shaking his head, “No, that was only a few months before all this, you didn’t say anything about ghosts, why didn’t you tell us?”

“What, and tell Ben his accidental victims were crying about their kids and families? Fuck you no. He was barely on his feet as it was.” Klaus scoffed, “So you see my problem here.”

Five was staggered, nodding, “What’s it like when you’re completely sober?”

“Here? I can only guess, closest thing to sober I’ve been was that first night here,” He shrugged, pleased this was going so well. Five had to see reason here soon, “Look, your plan might have been possible before all this? It wasn’t this bad before, but there’s just too many. The last time I was sober with a group of ghosts…” Klaus shivered, staring up at the red sky to remind himself where he was, “It wasn’t good.”

He made the mistake of blinking, dropping him into darkness for a second, and the memory solidified. They were old ghosts, far beyond any sanity left to them, and it wasn’t just the screaming, so loud he couldn't hear anything else. He could _feel_ them, their very essences bleeding into his own. They crept into his soul, his mind, shifting whatever made him Klaus to make space for themselves. For hours, it was just angry, terrified thoughts bleeding across the barrier with no telling of their origination. 

He wondered sometimes if they left something in him… or took something when they left. Would he even know? How can you really identify what makes you, you?

“What else have you tried?” Five pressed, sounding too eager for Klaus’s taste. He was sure the kid was going to let up soon. 

“What you mean what else have I tried, this is it, it’s an off or on situation and the only way for it to go away is with this.”

Five’s lips quirked down, “In sixteen years you’ve never experimented to try to control this better?”

“Why would I need to,” Klaus bit back petulantly, “I found the fun way to do it first try. Case closed.”

“Klaus…”

“Fine! Christ, small things help sometimes, drowning them out with sound if there’s only a few, pain, fu-” He eyed the thirteen-year-old and censored himself, the word ridiculously seeming more inappropriate when used as a verb, “...adult activities, anything particularly thrilling.” Adult activities _and_ pain, he added internally. 

The teenager didn’t even flinch, too deep in thought, “All things that could alter brain chemistry…”

“Five, come on, I’ve tried all this before. Maybe it would have worked before all this but it’s just not going to, there are too many.”

“But you haven’t,” Five said quickly, “You said you hadn’t tried much else.”

Klaus scoffed, ready to rattle the know-it-all until some sense shook out, “Trust me! This is the best way. Christ, if you can think of a better way to do it genius, then let me fuckin’ know.”

“Deal.”

Klaus paused short, “Wait, what?”

Five had squared himself up in front of the taller man, looking infuriatingly sure of himself, “Klaus we both know these drugs are not going to end well, either we’re going to run out or you’re going to hurt yourself on them. If I can figure out a way to manage the ghosts and keep you from harming yourself, would you promise to do what I say?”

Ready to scream, Klaus spun in a circle just to let off some frustration, “Look!” He sighed, “That’s real nice and all but it’s never going to be that easy.”

Little Five Hargreeves stared up at Klaus with the stubbornness and determination of a thousand suns, the child who invented freaking time travel just because his daddy told him he couldn’t do it, and said, “Try me.”

It was like an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force and Klaus really had no idea of where to place bets, “I mean… that’s, I guess. Okay?”

“Promise me,” Five pressed in, poking a sharp finger to his sternum. The hope was back in his eyes blindingly strong and painful to look at. “ _Please_ , Klaus.”

Despite himself, damn the pain, he found himself unable to look away.

“Okay… Okay, I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really dragged my poor son through the dirt for this one didn't I? I kinda had to, believe me, this one could not be done in halves. It took three tries to get here because guys, do you understand how EASY it is to convince Five it's logical to stay on drugs??? It's SO EASY. The little shit wasn't going where I wanted him to go.
> 
> Work is a beast right now (unless this interview goes real well) so time is even thinner. Any encouragement would be lovely because this next part is gonna be rough on all of us, I think.
> 
> Have a good week folks!


	9. Day 88-148

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for small mention of self harm. Forgive some typos it was either post now or get another pass at it and post next week. <3

Apocalypse: Day 88 

Five did not waste time, not wanting to give Klaus a second to rethink his decision. As soon as they made it back to the subway he went to work sweeping the room for every small stash Five knew of in the room even before Klaus made it down the stairs. It seemed to be something of a shock if the small choking sound from behind him was any indication.

“Wait wait wait, hey, hold on,” Klaus tried to intercept him, but Five just slipped out of his reach and continued, “This isn’t what I agreed to, you little--”

“Yes, it is.” Five interrupted flatly, elbow-deep behind a mattress to sweep underneath. He probably wouldn’t find everything, he’d only been watching for the last few days. Luckily it didn’t seem like Klaus had thought to stash any large amounts in the room, so if he were to miss a few it wouldn’t be a huge catastrophe.

Four shuffled behind him, hands peaked in front of his face, “You _said_ you’d find a way to do it safely, not that I had to stop entirely. I can’t-- Jesus. How are you finding-- how long have you been watching me?”

Five pegged the question’s double purpose immediately. How long had he been watching so Klaus could guess what he’d seen, and more importantly which stashes he possibly didn’t know about. So he lied, “Two weeks,” He dropped a small altoid tin full of some pills or another into his backpack, where everything else was going. “I said I’d help you and I will, but I can’t figure out the best way to do it unless I know what you’re taking and how much. So, you’ll be getting them from me and only me.”

That startled a bark of a laugh out of Klaus, “You... want to be my drug dealer?”

He sighed, pulling out another small bag from the inside of Delores’s chair, “If that would amuse you, sure. Could I trust you not to take anything extra if you had control of it?”

The slide of Klaus’s gaze to the left answered that question so he didn’t bother to press, just continued his meticulously thorough sweep around the room with half an eye on his brother the whole time. The panic and brief amusement seemed to be giving away to a badly disguised anxiety, making him pace and fidget in ways that looked beyond his control. 

“You’re going to take everything?” Klaus hazarded innocently, Five just nodded back, not willing to be distracted, “What if it’s something we need? Like if you get hurt and I need to help you? What about that?”

“I’ll tell you then if I have to.” He dismissed, which didn’t seem to make Klaus more calm. Not surprising, he doubted the question really came fully from a place of concern. He forgave it instantly, it was good practice, as he suspected he’d have to do that a lot in the near future.

Klaus watched with a growing look of distaste, voice still deceptively light, “So I just come begging to you every time I need a hit? Just, ‘Pretty please sir, may I have some more?’”

Five zipped up the bag, carefully rolled and pinned under his arm, and scooped up a pad of paper, “If you want to word it like that you can.”

“How will you even know what to give me or how much?”

The veneer of calm was so thin now that Five found himself instinctively mellowing further to compensate, squaring himself in front of the taller man with a look of absolute surety.

“I won’t lie to you. I’m not going to give you anything I decide is too dangerous, and I’ll have to figure that out for myself. For the rest… I intend on getting you to the lowest amount of medication we can while keeping you safe from the ghosts and yourself, and the only one who can tell me what works and what doesn’t is you,” The teenager waited to make sure Klaus was paying perfect attention before continuing, “So, I’m just going to have to trust you, aren’t I?”

Klaus blinked at that, stunned by the very idea, enough the next sentence seemed to escape him against his will, “I’ll lie.”

Five shrugged, “Probably, for a while, but then I’ll at least know how much you’ve taken and of what. Eventually I’ll set a cap but I’ll keep you in a safer range until then.”

This oddly seemed to annoy Klaus more, “I’ll find more without you, I always find more. I’ll sneak away and find wherever you’re going to hide it.” 

Five had to pause there, considering as his mind quickly supplied him with a viable solution. He did have one way he could make sure Klaus never located his hiding spot. He could put it somewhere only he could reach. A quick spatial jump into a bank vault or under a building and it would be safe and sound… but he hadn’t teleported in weeks, the idea of tearing open spacetime making him feel cold. Something that had been easy as breathing now tainted nearly beyond return. If he used it, he’d have to continue using his powers perhaps multiple times a day and without the aid of the adrenaline that an emergency situation provided to soothe the fear. 

“I’ll jump it away.” He said before he could think better of it, because he would. He’d do it.

Four physically wavered back on his feet, obviously knowing what that concession meant to Five. “But, you--” The gravity of it startled him into an uncharacteristic silence. Five just let him deal with it, too busy shoving his own nerves down to babysit Klaus’s. The man seemed to be attempting to process it by pacing in tight circles around the room, arms tucked around his chest.

“You,” Klaus tried again, arm flailing in his direction, “You don’t get it. Once it gets bad, I’ll get sick and weak. I’ll beg, I’ll scream, I’ll _hate you_.”

Five swallowed down that threat, “Maybe. For a while.” His voice strengthened with his conviction, “but we have time to get it right. Did you have other plans for the rest of the apocalypse?”

Klaus’s only response was an exasperated splutter, nails scraping through his hair, turning it into pure chaos. Five used the time to circle back in front of him, holding out the pad of paper and an open hand. “This doesn’t work without you wanting to do it and me putting some trust in you. There’s no other way. Right now, I’m trusting you to keep your promise.”

The man dragged his hands down his face and peeked out from between his fingers, but he didn’t back away again, seeming to consider it. Left in suspense, Five wouldn’t do something so childish as holding his breath but it was a close thing.

“That’s _the stupidest_ thing you’ve ever said,” Klaus dropped his hands and took the pad of paper without knowing what it was for, eyeing Five’s open hand, “But shit, fine. What do you want?”

Five smirked up at him, “Whatever you’ve got on you that you shouldn’t. Then I want you to write down everything you’ve used, how much, and what it did, as far back as you can remember.”

“Fuck me running,” Klaus wheezed, “I’m going to need more paper than this.” 

“Do what you can, start with the most recent and move backwards. I’m most interested in the data since I found you, when the ghosts were as strong as they are now. _Klaus._ ” He pointedly wiggled his fingers in between them, hand still empty.

With only a few gripes and a dozen creative swears, Klaus emptied his pockets into the teenager’s hand, the full divestment requiring Five to open the bag again to fit it all away, the backpack now rattling with a dozen small containers and various paraphernalia, Five felt reasonably accomplished. He was sure that Klaus was holding back but for now, this was enough and he didn’t want to press the fragile trust he’d been waxing poetic about earlier. He was about to cut off the main source anyway, the rest would whittle down to nothing eventually. He’d just have to account for inaccurate data for the first week or so. 

“You need anything for the next couple hours?” He checked before rolling the bag back up. 

“You’d just give me some? Just like that?” 

“Just like that.”

Klaus paused, seeming to be waiting for a catch, but Five wasn’t going to give him one. Then, for the first time since they’d come back to their weird little home, Klaus seemed to settle, shoulders slouching, “No… I think I’m good.” 

A genuine smile snuck up onto Five’s face and he shrugged the bag onto his back, “Good, I’ll be back in an hour or so, I’ll stay within walkie range if something comes up. Get started on that list.”

Klaus looked up from where he’d started flipping through the pad’s mostly empty pages, “Where are you going?” 

“To go get your other stashes,” Five replied honestly, already heading towards the stairs, “and block the entrance to the evidence locker.” 

The man let out a little “Oh,” sullenly, pulling the notepad up to tap against his nose, watching Five. 

Five made it up to the second flight of stairs before a loud crash and rustle behind him stopped him mid-step. Klaus eventually wheeled around the corner, slightly out of breath. Five tensed for a confrontation but instead the man just stomped up the stairs and shoved his fist back out, various plastic packets bristling out from between his fingers. 

“You missed some,” Klaus said unrepentant, as if he hadn’t been the one witholding. Five did him the favor of taking them without comment, especially when the man winced as he let go, “You’re lucky I’m still feeling good right now. _Don’t_ trust me again.”

Five smirked, a warmth seeping into him even as he prepared to go into the chilly air above, “Worked out this time, didn’t it?”

In a true turn of character, Klaus scoffed in dismissal and Five left laughing. 

***

The next few days were some of the more bizarrely pleasant ones Five had experience since he’d arrived in the apocalypse. One huge hurdle behind him and the next not yet dire, he had a moment to breathe. Klaus seemed to have the same idea, turning the weekend into a celebration that helped him bury what was an obvious amount of anxiety in what he was calling the “pre-apology” festivities, to butter Five up so he didn’t abandon his brother in a ditch somewhere in the next few weeks. It was meant to be a joke, but the teen had a heavy feeling it was a more serious attempt than Klaus was willing to admit.

Five spent his nights reviewing his strategy for Klaus by firelight while the man in question performed miracles, turning their eclectic mix of food into something actually passable. Five even let Klaus cut his hair with only moderate trepidation though he refused to stop reading while he did it, not willing to waste the propane for the lamp light for only one activity. 

Their days were spent continuing to build their stores for an impending winter that was showing more and more of its teeth by the week. Even that started to look up after they finally found a path traversable by truck to some valuable spots on the other side of the borough, turning a months worth of work into a day. 

What he hadn’t realized was that, by Klaus trying to hide his junkie tendencies, he’d also been sparing Five of a huge swathe of stories. Stories which Klaus now felt compelled to tell in a bizarre conversational game of chicken where Four told more and more depraved stories and Five refused to flinch, even while balking on the inside. 

Klaus generously “for the sake of your virgin ears” censored a great deal of it, but in an obnoxious way that somehow made them more graphic. It was a nonstop tour from the time Klaus and “some colleagues” broke into the city zoo and fell into the tiger enclosure, to the recounting of the disastrous Wig Fire of 2015 at a local drag show, to various flings he’d had across the years. All told in gratuitous technicolor until Klaus smirked and slapped his hands over Five’s ears or started telling the story in german until the danger had passed. Five was only sometimes left with Klaus’s vague hand gestures and slivers of context, and like an obscured monster in a horror movie, Five’s mind was prompted to fill in the gaps with unspeakable terrors worse than what (he hoped) actually happened. 

He refused to flinch though, because, from the look of pleased mischief on Klaus’s face, he fucking knew what he was doing. Five would never admit it too, but he liked hearing these things, liked that Klaus was eager to tell him things for once, even if he was sure they were filled with exaggerations and omissions. He was coming to understand Klaus didn’t do it out of any lack of trust or malice. Klaus just told stories to Five the same way he told them to himself, cleaned of sadness and doubt, because what was the point of lingering on that? 

Klaus would rather remember the fantasy than the depressing truths. While that grated against all the instinct in him seeking fact and predictable systems, here, sitting in a truck smiling so hard his cheeks hurt in the middle of a dead world, he could recognize the value in the approach. 

  
  
  


The first list Five had gotten back from Klaus had been daunting and nearly statistically useless. If he was lucky he got some indication of general length of effectiveness vs ghosts, one of the few things Klaus had been invested in keeping track of, but the rest was just pages full of block lettered intoxicants with deeply unquantifiable notes. Notes usually to the tune of “10/10 would smoke again!” with little hearts. Ayahuasca, for instance, had only a smiley face and a caricature of a bear puking down the margin of the notepad. Not exactly quality data.

He confronted Klaus about this the next night and had been promptly laughed at.

“What, you thought illegal drugs came with precise dosages and warning labels? So cute.” Klaus reached out from his bean bag chair next to pinch Five’s cheek, knowing it would be swatted away. 

“Fine, can we just start with the legal drugs then? Would you have a better idea for those?” 

“I mean sure, the dosages don’t follow the label since your tolerance goes up, but I can definitely tell you which ones I _don’t_ want to do. Some of that legal stuff was way worse than anything I could get from my friendly neighborhood dealer,” Klaus waved a hand, “I mean I took a few of Vanya’s pills a couple times, it worked I guess, but I felt like I was walking around in jello all day. I don’t know how she … functioned…”

Five looked up from his own fresh notepad where he’d been trying to translate Klaus’s notes into something useful. The man tapering off mid-sentence was not a cause for concern, especially now that Five actually knew what he was taking all day, but when Five looked, Klaus was surprisingly focused, if confused.

“What?” Five prodded him in the arm with the sharp side of his pen, which always seemed to restart him when he got stuck.

“Ow! Unnecessary.” Klaus batted him away, still seeming to be thinking, “It’s nothing I just… think I figured something out. Don’t worry about it.” 

He considered prying, but it rarely got him anywhere to press Klaus on things he didn’t want to talk about and he needed to ration out the interrogations until they were truly necessary. Right then Five was way more interested in his work anyway. If he wanted Five to know, he’d get there eventually. 

“Can you go through this list again and concentrate on the legal drugs we can find. I’d rather use them at least to start, so we can track dosages and I can at least _pretend_ they’re safer to use. If that doesn’t work then I’d rather make our own before we use most of the trash they’ve been keeping in the evidence locker.” 

“Alright, Heisenberg,” Klaus chuckled, “but I refuse to be Jesse, that doesn’t end well for anyone, trust me.”

***

The good times didn’t last. 

***

Five walked his plan through slowly, needing the time with a functional Klaus to make sure they had a decent head start on their supplies. Neither of them really knew what the process would do to him once they started. Klaus was vocally pessimistic on what was to come, trying to impress on Five what he had to look forward to, to prepare for it. In hindsight Five was extremely grateful for that, because things did not go smoothly. 

Each week was an incremental step, a new combination of medication as they tried to dial in on which kind of psychoactive drug was the most effective and stable for the longest. Depressants and stimulants, barbiturates, antipsychotics, opioids. Managing not only the withdrawal and the ghosts, but also the side effects.

Some would work well but render Klaus nearly unresponsive. Some various low grade narcotics were mixed in to attempt to gentle the withdrawal but it often made him sick and angry. They’d adjust again and the cocktail would last for only a few hours, leaving Klaus twitching away from hands that weren’t there. For times like those Five had an escape hatch in a few emergency doses on his person, unfortunately a Klaus in full withdrawal had clocked that early and Five learned just how good of a pickpocket he could be.

Klaus lived up to every warning he’d given and more. It had been some of the worst weeks of his life and all he could do was throw himself into work to cope.

Once they’d gotten past the first few stages, past the worst of the withdrawal, Klaus came back to himself in some ways and not in others. For hours he’d be mostly normal, if subdued and twitchy, unusually penned up and small in his movements. Five recognized it eventually for the presence of ghosts that only he could see, getting rid of them entirely had been a dream they’d given up on a month ago, there were just too many. They had discovered the ghosts could be kept weak, though. 

Sometimes things would slip though, on otherwise good days where Five had felt confident enough to give Klaus some space, he’d come back to various disasters. Klaus had developed a habit of running up to the street, with or without shoes, no matter the weather. Five only managed to coax him down into the stairwell and rarely any further. 

At other points Klaus would just be too exhausted or distracted to pretend the ghosts weren’t there anymore. He would talk to them, mostly under his breath when Five was around but he eventually discovered Klaus screamed back at them when he thought his brother was out of earshot. 

Five tried to counter that by finding Klaus a functioning walkman, and while he cranked it up to deafening volumes and it burnt through their battery stores like crazy, it seemed to help sometimes. When that wasn’t an option, Klaus scribbled nonsense on pads of paper, using the same sheets over and over again until they were completely illegible, and when that proved insufficient, he started continuing the writing up his arms. 

Five had caught him one day writing so hard on his forearm that the ink was tinted with red… He’d spend the next hour confiscating anything vaguely sharp and hid them in the collapsed subway tunnel where he’d been storing everything else. 

Klaus hadn’t said a word about it, resigned, waiting patiently for Five to finish and come back before quietly requesting some markers instead. Still keyed up, Five hadn’t even walked, just jumped over to the nearby husk of a UPS store and came back with the entire plastic display of colored sharpies. 

At least that was something that was improving. The teleporting. He just had no time or energy to fear it anymore, if he still pinched his eyes closed in the gaps in between this place and the next, that was his business and if he maybe held them closed just a few seconds longer when he arrived home, he didn’t think anyone could blame him either. 

He popped in at the top of the stairs, an unspoken capitulation to keep from spooking an already nervous Klaus, slipping out of the fabric of the universe to see the completely transformed stairwell leading down into their home base. 

It was Klaus’s new home space, some new carpets gracing the landings a bean bag chair and a table holding his marker collection off to one side. The walls were… insane. 

When Klaus had run out of room in the notebook and on his arms, the erratic, paranoid writing had spilled out onto the stairwell walls. Cramped fragments of phrases, questions, and pleas, some long and poetic, some lapsing into either gibberish or a shorthand only Klaus would understand. 

“It’s what they say,” Klaus had explained a month back, when the writing had first appeared, without even waiting for Five to ask. “Sort of.”

Five had found him that day, sitting cross legged on the landing, looking up at the tribute to insanity he’d created, a full array of permanent markers clipped onto one of his necklaces in easy reach. 

“I did it back home-- at the Academy. Back when it was the worst, when Dad was really trying to push me to get better. It worked. I couldn’t avoid hearing them and they were so loud...” He looked up at Five with a tired smile and waved off the thought like an annoying fly, “It helps to write down what _they_ think and what _I_ think so I can keep them separate. So I don’t lose anything.”

Five stalled, the implications in the spaces of what Klaus didn’t say, as always, speaking the darkest things, “What they think?” 

“Yeah, sometimes they don’t bother with words. No lungs, no point. Sometimes it’s just… feelings.” Klaus sighed wistfully, “That’s harder to write down.” 

Four reached out and dragged a finger down one the sentences, the ink smeared, having trouble clinging to the glossy tile, “Mom would wash it off when she found it at first. Or painted over it.” Klaus coaxed the smear into the shape of a happy face, “But then I started drawing things on the wall too and she couldn’t bear to take it down. They were crap drawings, barely anything but they were on a wall so I guess that meant something to her. She went off and dragged Pogo back into my room saying stuff like ‘Look! My boy is an artist!’ She never washed it off again.” Klaus’s smile went from tired to genuinely fond and Five found himself joining. 

He’d just patted Klaus on the shoulder, “Let me know if you need more.”

It had started on the second landing grown like aggressively invasive ivy in the last month. Five didn’t like to read it, it felt like an intrusion but he did let himself vaguely take in the shape of it as he descended the staircase, noting the new growth, the alternating colors, letting himself contemplate for a moment the huge ecosystem beyond his reach. 

Reginald had always been careful with the information on their powers, only giving the media significantly sanitized versions of them. Allison’s powers had been described as temporary, there was no mention of the possibility of time travel with Five, and Ben’s were hilariously described as just gentle extra appendages. 

The idiot Five had been even six months ago hadn’t even considered that their father was similarly withholding information about each other as well. The old man always seemed to know more than they did about their own powers but Five had been so occupied with his own development he hadn’t bothered to question it. Especially with Klaus whose powers were so invisible and too existentially terrifying to think of as a child, all of them had been more than willing to accept what Reginald had told them, even when in hindsight the symptoms never matched up. 

All of them, they knew nearly nothing about these powers.

Five stopped next to a particularly dense thatch of lettering, and looked down at his own hands. Their father had known that not only was time travel possible, but what the side effects of it would be, and he’d seemed to know much more. Five wondered if Reginald knew what was between the jumps, the vast _something_ he caught glimpses of for fractions of seconds, that he felt compelled to look at longer. 

Five wondered if he knew how that urge would be so much stronger after he time travelled. So strong a tiny part of him worried that one time he wouldn’t be strong enough to resist the pull and he just wouldn’t come out the other side. Or worse, that he’d rip a hole big enough It could come join him here. 

That worry hadn’t disappeared as he jumped more often, but if there was anything Five had in spades it was willpower. The strength of his convictions to fix this all were infinitely stronger than the childish urge to just do it to prove he could, and with each day and each jump, his hands shook less and less. 

He eventually found Klaus asleep in a chair pulled next to the foot of the stairs, within reach of both the sky and the fire in their retrofitted wood stove. 

Where Five’s powers were starting to ease, Klaus’s had not been so kind. He looked frankly awful, eyes bruised with exhaustion, fingers and cheeks smudged with ink, face crowded with uneven stubble from only half attempts at shaves. He ate and laughed less, sleeping whenever he could. He seemed hollowed out, like his powers were consuming him bit by bit.

They’d gone through several different mixes and for a while they’d been hopeful... but it always returned to this. Knowing what he did now, he doubted that even letting Klaus have every drug in the world would eventually just get him back here. Klaus had admitted the ghosts were already starting to intrude, even when he was at the peak of his use. There were just too many of them. 

Now, even as Five went to toss another blanket over his brother’s too thin form, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was always going to lose Klaus, one way or another.

***

Vanya was back. 

She had been for a while, though weirdly distant. Visible only from far away, but unmistakable even then. She didn’t operate like the other ghosts who were weakened by the drugs down to vague malicious shapes. She was nearly as solid as she’d ever been, though she seemed to have more trouble holding her crumbling form together, constantly degrading in a nonexistent wind. 

The other ghosts gave her a wide berth for whatever reason and Klaus couldn’t blame them as he had been trying to do the same. It made her into the one quiet spot in the city, the eye of a 

storm Klaus found himself constantly weathering. 

After much work, the drugs _were_ working, but it was a constant battle to compensate for the increasing amount of ghosts that flocked to the city. Klaus dimly wondered if there was some sort of ghost phone tree that kept them all informed of his current whereabouts because wherever he went, they weren’t far behind, giving him only brief reprieves when they went out hunting. The worst of it, of course, was around the subway and in the surrounding tunnels, somewhere he was forced to stay as the weather became more and more unpredictable. They’d become a crush of ghostly minds so thick they were just a convergence of eyes, hands, and emotions, barely recognizable for the humans they’d been before. 

While the current bevy of pills provided all of the fogginess with almost none of the fun, they had a markedly more steady effect compared to the precarious attempts he’d been making to maintain his high before. More importantly, what the drugs _did_ do was give him space. The ghosts were constantly there but their influence was dimmed.

It wasn’t good but it was functioning. He felt like half of himself, though the question of how much of who he had been before had just been the drugs was a common contender in the horror carousel of his thoughts. The constant music wasn’t just to drown out the ghosts. 

The problems usually came in from the fact that all medication had points in the day where their effectiveness flagged, and while the parade of pills he was on was far more dependable, they definitely weren’t an exception. At certain parts of the day, the ghosts would strengthen, and they’d figured that out real quick. Right smack in the middle of the day was a common lull, and the brightness did nothing to discourage them from trying to take advantage of the tiny window they had to work with. 

Those times were… essentially lost to Klaus. The world melting into a giant sea of thoughts and fiery desperation, where he didn’t even really exist anymore. In those times he held on to himself by writing as much of it down as he could, not an easy task as it was like being both awake and dreaming at the same time. 

He categorized it all by color, by feeling, reserving his best black marker for the times when his own thoughts surfaced, or at least thoughts he was reasonably sure belonged to him. The rest were just tributes to people so lost in their own grief and anger they no longer held onto their own humanity, and they just wanted him to join them.

It only lasted a half an hour at most, but each time, each day, he felt completely drained. Just a dry battery in human form.

Today the sun was nearing its peak, and Five was gone somewhere, Klaus hadn’t been paying attention where he’d gone, but probably just one of any number of attempts at keeping their little boat floating, the beautiful little bastard. Klaus would never understand what kept that kid going. It was a blessing, pretending to be less crazy always made it harder and if he was alone, he didn’t have to make the effort. Well… alone as in just him, the ghosts, and Vanya.

She was unusually close today. She was taking up a particular cruel vigil point at the top of the stairs, blocking him from leaving if he’d wanted to, which he often did. Being stuck in the subway was often just too much, and he usually opted to leave the stairwell when Five wouldn’t be any the wiser about it. She was just standing up there, quiet, judging. She didn’t speak nearly at all anymore but he could tell she knew what she was doing and Klaus didn’t think it was cute.

“Oh! Vanya! So weird to see you here, funny how you bump into people.” He gave a mocking wave up at her, stopping at the second landing. He could feel the fog lifting from him inch by inch, the first sign of the oncoming storm. She didn’t respond. “Is that so? You got a new job, so exciting, we should really do a lunch date sometime--oh wait, I forgot, everyone is dead.” 

She didn’t even shift, literally expressionless, just slowly crumbling ash in the shape of a person. She kept just far enough away that the ghosts could filter in towards him around her, more substantial by the second. 

He paced a circle around the landing, sharpie dancing across each knuckle on his shaking hand, back and forth. The pressure around him rose. It always felt like he was trapped in a sinking ship, the water rising up giving him a last few gasps of air before he went under. He had no idea how long he could hold his breath, how long he could make himself swim. Each day he’d managed to break to the surface but he didn’t know if it would last. Christ he was tired, he was so damn tired his bones hurt. 

“I hope you’re proud of yourself.” He bared his teeth at her, making a mockery of a smile, and gestured at the manic writing creeping up from the base of the stairs, “Is this what you want, huh? To make me as crazy as you are? Cause it’s fucking working!” 

The pitch that always accompanied her raised in intensity for a moment at that, coaxing the headache he nearly always had back awake. 

“Good! Good for you. So impressive, very scary.” His accompanying slow clap was especially salty. 

Emboldened or perhaps just beyond caring, Klaus prowled up the stairs, intent on pushing past her outside. If he was going to deal with this he was at least going to do it in an open space, fuck you very much, but as soon as he was about to pass her Vanya sidestepped in front of him, making her intent clear. 

“I can just walk through you, you know.” He hissed at her, a bluff, he desperately didn’t want to. Her ghost form was… wrong, more formed than the others but a lot more sharp, like a jumble of broken glass. He’d stepped through her once and it has felt like being struck by lightning. 

She called his bluff, chin raising in defiance.

The misty ghosts around him, surged inward, hands forming, reaching out blindly. Klaus did the only thing he could do, and like the fully grown adult he was, Klaus stamped his foot and threw the marker at the wall with the little strength he had. He had no choice than to sullenly wait for it to clatter all the way down, disappearing into the shadow beyond. He felt nothing but anger in that moment and he dimly wondered if it had already started, if the rage was coming from the ghosts or even Vanya, or if this was all his own. It didn’t matter much.

He whipped around, hands in claws in front of him, “I’m sorry alright!! I’m so damn sorry for whatever happened! I’m sorry I didn’t help you, I’m sorry I was too busy being high to notice! I’m sorry I let that asshole get near you and I’m so fucking sorry for all those years that I let you down!” He nearly screamed it, the echo of the stairwell bouncing his own sins back into his face. It didn’t even hurt, he’d had plenty of time to reflect on them by now. There wasn’t much else to do in the apocalypse other than _reflect_.

“I. am. an. asshole.” He enunciated each words, “I’m the worst. I _know._ You’re not the only one I failed. Here’s the thing though, you need to cut me some fucking slack because yes I’m the worst, but you… you did _this._ ” Klaus swept a gesture at the rubble, the ghosts, the scorched sky. 

The pitch raised, sharp enough he could feel it in his teeth.

“ _You_ killed the world.” He laughed out with zero humor, “and I do mean _you_ . Whatever you are, because you’re not Vanya, you’re not my sister right now. I don’t care what I saw back then, I _refuse_ to accept she would do this on her own. Maybe you’re a part of her, or in her or whatever, I don’t fucking know, but whatever-you-are is responsible for more harm than I could ever scratch the surface of. _Deal with it_.” 

Klaus pressed in, more and more up the steps until he was close enough he could reach out and touch her, the sound intense. This close, suddenly towering over her, he could see the subtle bow of her shoulders, the growing pinch of angry blue fire in her eye sockets. She flinched back from him, small, but it was there, and that was new… that hurt. He’d forgotten how small she was, how slight, and the subtle shift back had been so fucking Vanya. 

He missed her suddenly. He missed everyone. He didn’t often look back, there wasn’t a point, but the exhaustion made a fool out of him in so many ways. 

“If…” The word cracked, the idea of even bringing up this bit of hope so painful, “If my sister is in there…. I know it seems like you can’t break through, and I wish I knew how to help you but I don’t. All I can tell you is: it’s possible,” He tried to push every ounce of belief he had into the words, even as the fiery eyes glared up at him, “Ben had the same problem he was… a mess at first, but he pushed through eventually. I don’t know how, I’m sorry, I can’t help you, you’re going to have to figure it out on your own.” 

The fire brightened, the rage licking against his senses, and for the first time he related, “I know, I know.” He steepled his hands in front of his face, less of a prayer and more a tiny space to hide in, “Right now I’m doing everything I can to just not fall apart for Five, that’s all I can do. Try to be here for him in… whatever way I can.” 

The fire retreated by increments so subtle he barely noticed, but it did enough for Klaus to look back up. Her shoulders had slumped more, making her charred skin crack around the joints. 

“You and I, we’re lost causes, but Five? He’s barely started. He’s trying so hard to keep me here, hell if I know why.” Klaus said wearily, “I don’t even know if I could even leave him if I tried. I don’t think they’ll let me die and I don’t know what it would do to him if I did. So I _have_ to do this, I have to try.” 

Klaus pinched his hands back over his face again, wanting any escape available, “I’m just so fucking exhausted Vanya, I’m so tired. Please, please just cut me a break for even just a week. Please.” Maybe he was praying this time, to the uncaring goddess of destruction that was Vanya Hargreeves. He wasn’t sure it worked, but something changed.

Vanya’s presence dimmed abruptly, the comparative silence staggering after such constant noise. The murmurings of thousands of ghosts still bubbled around him, but when he looked up Vanya was gone entirely. He felt hollow, not knowing what to do with that development, was it a further dismissal or a capitulation. Did it matter?

Klaus turned and descended the stairs on shaky legs, fishing around on the next landing for the marker he’d stupidly thrown, the black one, the most important one. He took advantage of her absence and let himself out into the chill air and red skies, hunkering down next to a pillar with a good stretch of bare wall to abuse. He popped the cap off and twisted, scratching out some words he didn’t want to lose. _Stay. Stay. Stay. For him._ The ghosts could take anything else, could muddy his memories further, could drown him in sadness, he just needed to keep that one goal. He pulled his headphones up over his ears, volume so high it rattled his headache to a screaming roar, it was good, the pain was a good center. 

He sat and waited for the rush of ghosts.

***

An hour later he woke up with Five leaning down over him, a pinched look on his face as he tugged the headphones off his ear.

“Klaus?” He prodded, not finishing the ever present ‘you alright’. 

He could only stare up at the teen confused, conscious that the cassette tape had ended at some point and the sun had moved in the sky. He ignored Five, tugging himself out of the teen’s grip to look back at the wall next to him, still bafflingly empty except for the tiny script he’d added earlier. 

“What time is it?” He asked, scrambling to his feet on watery legs. 

“Three-thirty,” Five said concern growing, “What happened, you shouldn’t sleep out here it’s too cold.” 

Klaus waved that off, three hours had passed. He looked around, the ghosts still there, and strong it looked like, nearly solid down to their feet but they were all hanging back. All beyond grabbing distance… spread in an arc. Klaus whipped around, crossing around the block of concrete to see in the shade of the pillar, Vanya sitting, knees to her chest, just a darker shape in the shadow. 

She looked up at him, not even attempting a word. Staring. Challenging.

“Klaus is everything okay?” Five ground out, sounding barely restrained. 

Klaus just looked down at the tiny folded form in front of him, feeling more well rested than he had in weeks, standing safe in the bubble of fear she inspired in the other ghosts. 

“...yeah, Five. I think it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horrah! Throwing this up here while I have time, bit of a biggun and the end of one of the major arcs. This one made me weirdly happy to write and I hope it does for you guys as well. Your comments are *gold*.
> 
> Thank you all for all your well wishes on the interview, it seemed to go well but I won't know for a couple weeks! Here's hopin' cause I just did 17 hours of overtime last weekend and have more coming this weekend. Whuf.


	10. 9 Months, 3 Days

### Apocalypse: 9 Months, 3 Days

Klaus had to lean back his entire body weight to close the door against the winds outside, the blizzard licking in around him and swirling around their new entrance hall at the top of the stairs. Five had been ranting for months about his plans for the winter, but Klaus had been resistant to blocking the entrance at all. He wasn’t a fan of closed spaces but once the first big snowstorm came through, even he thought better of it. 

They’d framed out a two door system that day and cannibalized a few metal doors from inside the subway system to close it up. Carpentry, just another skill Klaus had never foreseen needing in his life, yet here he was.

It hadn’t been easy. The weather was acting like it was out to get them, and if they hadn’t been so dug in, it might very well have. Five’s Paranoia: 12, Angry Apocalypse World … like 2, probably. It kept them cooped up, with only the subway tunnels accessible anymore. It was a nightmare for him on so many levels. Just weeks straight of closed spaces, dusty air, dark tunnels, and ever thinning food stores, but they were managing. Klaus had learned to grade nightmare scenarios on a curve anymore, and he’d found small amusements to keep himself sane. 

“Think fast!” Klaus flung the snowball down to where Five was standing next to the stove. The teen (now 14, imagine that) didn’t even look up from his book, just casually back stepped into a rift and out halfway across the room. Plan foiled, but still cheerful, Klaus clapped his gloved hands. 

He was just happy to see Five use his power more casually again. While the showy glee Five had used to have in his powers was far gone, and maybe for good reason, he was far more comfortable in their use. He’d taken to testing himself, in their time cooped up in the tunnels, popping this way and that just to prove he could. Klaus would take it, they’d learned to savor any victory.

“Take your shoes off, you’re covered in snow.” Five intoned, still not looking up from what he was reading. Some thick physics book beyond Klaus’s homeschool dropout pedigree. 

“Yes, Mooom,” Klaus shook himself like a dog, shedding snow in every direction around him on purpose, before attempting to shuffle out of his snow gear. It was a ten-minute process to shed it all, but he tried to narrow it down to half that, meaning only some of it got hung up next to Five’s carefully organized set. 

Five had settled back into his chair next to their wood stove, and Klaus moved to join him. He flopped heavily into his spot in an oversized beanbag chair that still had most of its fluff, thick blanket in hand. 

“Watcha reading?” He asked nosily, leaning over to look at his brother. He’d swapped books at some point, now holding a smaller paperback. Five just tilted the book up so Klaus could see the cover in the candlelight. Vanya’s book again. “How many times have you read that?”

Five closed the book on a finger, realizing that he wasn’t going to let him read in peace, “Enough,” He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, and Klaus crawled his brain to test that. He’d seen it several times, every few months maybe, it was hard to tell as he’d lost a lot of time in Apocalypse Rehab, as he’d started to call it. 

“Have you read it?” Five looked placid as always, but his finger was lightly tapping at his book in what Klaus now recognized as anxiousness. 

“Yeah, we all did.” 

“And how did that go?” Five hazarded further. It wasn’t often he pressed for information like this and Klaus had been so grateful for that. Things were… tricky still in that department. 

“Well, that’s a big question,” Klaus reclined in his chair in a full body stretch, wiggling his bare feet closer to the stove, “I wasn’t around for a lot of it, but Luther mostly pretended he hadn’t read it at all. I found a copy in his room though, notated all to hell. Allison was in LA so I don’t know, but the tabloids had a field day and she had to cancel a few appearances. Her fans were ready to physically toss Vanya under a bus until Allison released a statement telling them to cool it.” 

He kept his eyes carefully focused on the fire for this next part. They must have put cash in there again, it had a very particular scent when burnt. “Diego… it hit Diego hard. He and Vanya had kept in contact the most across the years, I think he’d occasionally check in on her so… it felt like a y’know, an extra stab in the back.” Klaus mimed a knife coming down, with an uneasy titter.

Five winced in agreement, “He’s not much for criticism.”

The giggles turned into outright nervous laughing at that, “Nooo, he completely disowned her, said she wasn’t part of the family anymore.”

“What about you?” 

Klaus shrugged. He’d been worried, at the time, he hadn’t been in the public eye for a long time and that had been intentional. Whenever there was a resurgence in popularity for their little troupe of weirdos, some “where are they now” article or another, it would shake a few desperate people out into the open. People who sometimes sought Klaus out to settle their grief over some dead loved one or another. He knew to avoid them. 

Vanya’s book had brought a few to his neighborhood, but not nearly as many as usual. He’d ducked them without much effort. Their powers had been the one place she’d toed the company line, not revealing more than had already been known, and skimming over it unless necessary. Once that danger had passed he’d been able to view the book for what it was. 

“I think I was relieved,” Klaus wiggled his nails in front of his view, colored in with sharpies but already smudging.

The teen was fidgeting, unusually transparent. He was so obviously starved for information on the parts of their lives he’d missed, Klaus knew that. He was warring on whether to push this topic or let it go, barely holding on to his demand for more information. Klaus took pity on him. 

“I’d hit, let’s call it a low point. I was in rehab at the time, can’t remember which try that was.” Klaus smiled self-deprecating, “I guess I always thought I’d be the one to spill the beans? The press would pay a lot for that info, at least about Allison, and it would just take the right combination of desperation and lack of cash flow, and well... I was relieved Vanya got there first. She was much classier than I would have been.” 

Five leaned back in his chair, a tall stately wingback he could fold himself up into, seeming to digest the info. Klaus held his breath for a second before forcing himself to let it out, to calm and accept that things would be alright enough. At least with Five. Against his will his eyes slid to the side, across the room to the dark shape in the farthest corner. Vanya, typically unreadable. She was always on the precipice of rage, but there had been some progress. Lately she was standing a few feet back from the edge instead of dangling her toes over at all times.

Mostly now… she just looked lost.

“It actually helped me, at the time, like I said, I was in rehab, but after awhile they want you to go to meetings or group and you’re expected to share.” He found himself saying, squinting into the dark before remembering himself and turning back, “ I couldn’t exactly go into group and be like, I was one of seven children purchased by a megalomaniacal millionaire to be turned into one of his child soldiers. Oh, and I also have literal corpses following me around! At worst they think I’m crazy, well, crazier, and at best they believe me and I drop personal details and I have to trust the other people in the group not to go to the press. It just… nooo.”

Vanya’s head tilted in her corner. 

“Couldn’t really get much out of therapy if you don’t participate, so when the book came out it was open season, my hands were untied.” Despite himself, Klaus’s smile turned genuine in anticipation of the next memory, “The next meeting I did a very dramatic reading of the book where I played all parts, per-fec-tly. There was applause. I was gonna take it on the road.”

He was all ready to reenact the show right there, especially when Five tried to hide his smirk with a sigh of exasperation, but it felt a little too real with the author standing over his shoulder this time. In the spirit of group though, he felt compelled to try something else. 

“What about you Five, what do you think about it?” 

Vanya’s ghost shrunk nearly back into the wall and Klaus wanted to take it back. What was done was done though, no stopping it now. The teen idly fanned the pages with a finger, stuck in thought.

“I think she was too kind to me.” Five said, a bit thin, “I aban— I left. She says I’m so intelligent but I wasn’t thinking then. Says I cared but I never showed it. Says I’ll come back to my family but I...” He shook his head.

Ah shit, Klaus sighed, now he’d made everyone sad. Fix it, fix it.

“Give her more credit. She knew us better than we’d like to think, at least for me,” He blurted, “She was the only one of us who actually took the time to try to understand me, all of us, y’know? No on else did that. I’m…” Klaus dashed a look to the corner, “I certainly never did that for her and I regret it. She got a lot of it right so, maybe you should just trust her a bit?”

Five seemed unconvinced. 

“Hey! I like you at least half the time, so, gold star there!”

With ridiculous precision, Five tossed his pen right at Klaus, the dull end nailing him over his sternum, but a small smirk was on his lips. Four took the moment to cling to it dramatically, as if he’d been shot with an arrow from afar and been doomed to a slow death. Just a piece of the talent one could expect from a Klaus Hargreeves one man show! Buy your tickets now!

“Klaus? What happened to her after the book?”

The man straightened up in his chair abruptly, meeting Five’s already resigned gaze, like he knew he wasn’t going to get an answer already. Klaus’s mouth hung open, conflicted. He wanted to tell him, had wanted to many a time, but… He looked over to his right, at Vanya, who had appeared several feet closer, the start of a warning ring in the air. 

“Oh hey!! I almost forgot,” Klaus launched up and across the room, the least smooth distraction in a long line of bad distractions, and tugged the trunk he kept under his cot out. He didn’t need to see the resignation take hold fully in his little brother, he could practically hear it and he had to let it pass. Klaus returned with a shoebox with a bow on top and dropped it into Five’s lap. 

“Merry Christmas, Five!” Klaus waggled his hands in the air in festive jazz hands, “Or approximately, we’re somewhere in that area.”

Perhaps it had been a good distraction after all because Five looked mildly stunned, hands hovering over the box like he didn’t want to touch it. That was fair, he’d never gotten a Christmas present in his life. They hadn’t celebrated it or any other holidays when they were young, but they’d each taken to one event or another afterwards. Klaus’s favorite was always Halloween but Christmas was a close second for the sheer pageantry of it. 

“Open, open,” Klaus nudged the box and Five begrudgingly obliged, carefully wiggling the ribbons off enough he could open it, revealing a half dozen folded pairs of socks inside. 

If there had been one part of fashion Five had become something of an expert in, it was socks. They walked miles and miles most days and the teen had come to several strong opinions about what he put on his precious feet. So Klaus, in the few trips where they were able to get out lately, had been scouring various sock drawers for the best of the best. In the process he had found many other fun things in those drawers too, things he was definitely not bringing up to Five.

It all culminated in what was in that shoe box: the Sock Elite. They were the most breathable, the best structured, most durable socks in the immediate area. If they all had various puppy related patterns on them, puppies playing with balls, puppies building snowmen, puppies on vacation, well, that was a bonus. 

Five held them up into the firelight, squaring a stern look at Klaus to tell him he was not fooled by the distraction, but then softened at the little designs despite himself.

“Cute,” Five sighed, trying to pretend he didn’t like them as he rolled them back up and kept the box carefully in his lap. “I didn’t get you anything.”

Klaus waved him off, rolling over to cuddle into his chair, “You’re settled up for another few years, trust me.” 

“No, I need you to know I’m working on something. Something for all of us.” Five shook his head, seeming conflicted, “I’m going to fix this, all of this.” 

Klaus stilled, mind not willing to process any optimism at the moment, “Oh? Do tell.” 

“It’s early,” Five said, challenging Klaus to press him on it, “I’ll tell you when I’m closer.” 

It was fair, Klaus thought as he looked over at Vanya, back in the darkest corner, they were each entitled to their secrets. So he just threw the pen back, landing it in the shoe box and smiled up from inside his blanket cocoon.

“Okay. I trust you, Five.”

***

Vanya didn’t speak often, it seemed to pain her, but when she wanted something she had no problem making it known. Her favorite tactic, especially if Klaus was not paying the most attention, was to wait until he was on the outside edge of a dose and pull incrementally farther away when she knew Klaus would feel the effects. She didn’t care if it was inconvenient, if he was doing something, or if he’d really just like to be asleep right then, when Vanya wanted to chat, she would have her damn chat. 

So when Klaus looked up to see the mostly formed ghosts filtering down the stairs and Vanya nowhere to be seen, he just sighed deeply and got up. 

After their little talk Five had went back to reading and nodded off shortly after, the constant dark had both of them doing good bear impressions, mostly only eating and sleeping until the storms passed. The constant dark really fucked with your sleep schedule and they needed to ration the light as much as the food. 

Quietly, Klaus slipped his boots back on, grabbed a lantern, and headed not up the stairs but opened an employee entrance off to the side. The darkness yawned in front of him, the halogen lantern showing a few feet into the confined hallway beyond. He’d like to think she made him go this way because it was the most private, and not that she knew he hated it, but he was never sure.

A few minutes through the hallway, ducking cobwebs and breathing out in counts of ten, the passage dumped him out into the service walkway in the subway tunnel. Klaus regretted immediately not bundling up again. The tunnels were sheltered from the storm but the winds found a way to blow cold air in them anyway. It was fine, it wouldn’t take long, Vanya was never verbose.

She was sitting on a ledge over the tracks, legs dangling over, a smudge in the darkness. She’d changed lately. Most of the time, she was not as substantial as before, but also not as gruesome. More resembling a crumbling shadow. The minute Klaus did something to set her off though, she was back to her crunchy, hellfire form. She seemed to be fueled by that anger, able to sustain herself without any outside help, something he had never seen before. 

Klaus popped down next to her, despite her proximity making his hair stand on end, and checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes til I have to wake Five up for more drugs, oh sister-ghost of mine, what’s up?”

Her shape sharpened at the mention of Five, head whipping over. Ah, that was it. 

“I didn’t tell him. You saw.” He protested, letting one leg dangle over the tracks while keeping the other pulled up against him… just in case he needed to back away quick. 

Vanya’s small hands gripped the ledge, grinding out the word like she was chewing on broken glass, “Don’t.” 

Four smeared a hand down his face, exasperated. Vanya’s help had been… life saving, in several ways, and while Klaus was grateful for that every damn day, it came with some serious downsides. Their truce, even months later was very brittle, which happened when one half of the truce seemed to have got her emotional dial stuck on Rage at some point. 

It worried Klaus, he’d seen new ghosts dealing with their first throes of ghost-dom and he’d seen very old ghosts, there too long to hold only any form of sanity. The more he interacted with Vanya, the more he realized she didn’t feel like either. Even in the newer spirit’s rages, they often were able to tap into more than one kind of feeling, at least sadness eventually. 

Whenever Vanya seemed to be close to brushing against some other emotion, she just shut down instead, like she’d been reset. In rare moments something else would sneak through, and without those moments he would have doubted this was Vanya at all, but it was like viewing his sister through fogged glass. She was in there somewhere, but Klaus was beginning to wonder if she’d ever break through. 

On top of that he was now more dependent on her than he was on any drug, and it made him hesitant to ever press. She wasn’t unwilling to listen but he had to pick his fights very carefully.

Maybe now was one of those times. 

“Van,” He tried to look casual while being ready to spring back, “We should tell him about you at least.” 

She hissed at that, a tone rising with it, and Klaus waved his hands to shush her, “No no, hear me out, we don’t have to tell everything, we should eventually, he wants to know and I don’t know if I can keep lying about it.” Whoops that wasn’t helping, Vanya was growing more substantial by the second. “Okay, okay, but what if we just tell him you’re here?”

Vanya turned with menace.

He switched to another tactic that sometimes broke through, “I didn’t tell anyone about Ben and it fucking sucked for him, all I’m saying is you don’t have to be entirely alone. Don’t you want him to know that you still care?”

“NO!” She howled and, so quickly Klaus had no time to move-- lunged forward, reaching out for some reason he wouldn’t know. Her hand landed and passed through his bare wrist. God it was so hard to describe. It felt like he’d shoved his arm in a bucket of knives and then been struck by lightning, paralyzed. He clamped his eyes shut, the only thing he could do, anticipating something worse. It took a second to realize nothing else was coming, and another to notice the brightness shining through his lids. 

He cracked one open, seeing Vanya staring in shock up at the roof of the tunnel where a string of electric emergency lights were now on and humming loudly, the glow pulsing like a heartbeat. The two of them said nothing, stunned, looking up and down the active tunnel, noting the lit directional signal farther up the tracks, and even maybe the buzz of the third rail below. An electrical grid that had been dead for nearly a year suddenly on and strong. 

“How…” Klaus said dumbly, blinking against the sudden brightness.

Vanya had gone troublingly blank again, not projecting any feeling Klaus could suss out, but there was an unmistakable tenseness there. The lights continued to wax and wane, seeming to grow brighter each time, the hum louder. A new feeling eeked out of Vanya, low and easy to miss. Panic… it felt like panic, rising with the lights higher and higher until-- 

They abruptly shattered, raining broken glass down on them, forcing Klaus to dodge away from Vanya to avoid the worst of it, breaking their contact. 

As soon as Vanya’s hand was removed from his, the electricity stopped. They were drowning in darkness again, with only the small halogen lantern between them, seeming so dim in comparison. Klaus’s wide eyes met Vanya’s absent ones. 

“What the fuck was that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the start of the next big arc of the story which I took some time to make sure was fully outlined this weekend. So eager :D
> 
> Oh also! I made the mistake of reading my earlier chapters and nearly gasped at how rusty I was at the start of this fic. So I edited the first few chapters to make them not as embarassing. Bless you all for getting through those. Jeeeez.


	11. 10 Months, 26 Days

### Apocalypse: 10 Months, 26 Days

“You skipped lunch.” 

Five looked up from his work to see Vanya peering at him, her gaze letterboxed between heavy bangs and the wall of books between them. He straightened up at the sight, he hadn’t heard her come up. It wasn’t out of the ordinary, she was a quiet girl and he tended to lose track of everything else when he was working. 

Today was an egregious example, leaving him feeling foggy with no grasp on what time it was. He looked around quickly to the study’s grandfather clock, worried he’d missed the dinner bell. He’d miss lunch without issue but even he wasn’t so brazen to miss dinner. Thankfully he was safe, for the moment.

Vanya knocked politely on the stack of books as if asking permission into his fort. He often stacked them up around him not for use, but because it sometimes kept the others from distracting him. For such a large house, finding a moment of solitude was not as easy as you’d think. 

He reached out and parted two stacks to allow Vanya in, and revealed the heavy china plate in her small hands, containing a single peanut butter marshmallow sandwich. She set it on the oak table with a thunk, then climbed arduously up into the tall chair. Unsurprisingly, for a place he intended for 7 children to study, Reginald had not acquired any child-sized furniture. Vanya’s legs dangled above the floor, swaying under her long academy skirt.

“You skipped breakfast too,” the girl slid the plate closer. 

Five caught himself, setting his pen to the side in favor of the plate. He tried to shake the fog out of his mind to no success. If he couldn’t even remember what he’d been working on then it was time for a break anyway, and damn if he wasn’t hungry. “Thank you, Vanya.”

She smiled shyly, curling in like she was trying to run from the gratitude, but she stayed. Five could distantly hear loud footsteps somewhere in the halls, muted yells of childish voices at play. Dad must be gone then, and it explained Vanya’s presence. She didn’t often participate in the roughhousing or rule breaking, especially after they’d knocked over a priceless ming vase years back. She’d been too terrified to even come out of her room until Mom glued it back together and promised never to tell their father. 

“What are they playing?” Five bit into the sandwich. 

Vanya looked mildly ill at the reminder, “baseball or… tag, or baseball and tag? I didn’t stick around.” 

As if conjured, the sound of something hitting the chandelier in the lobby echoed through the halls, quickly followed by a few squawks from the responsible parties. Continuing to chew, he leaned forward to peek out the double doors, catching sight of Ben and Diego running past cackling. Vanya watched them pass with an imperceptible look, fear and longing, maybe.

Five nudged her foot under the table, “Don’t worry. I’ll be here to vouch for you.”

He expected her to relax at that, it was usually all it took, but when he went to pick up the second half of his sandwich she looked unusually blank. Her legs had stopped swinging, fixed on him.

“Will you?”

Uncomfortable, Five paused, leaving the other half, “Yes, of course.”

“You promised before that you’d be here, but you weren’t.” Her eyes dulled, like dark lifeless pits, “Why did you leave, Five?”

Five stilled, knuckles white on the tabletop, not even able to stammer a response.

“How could you do this to us?” The girl leaned forward, long hair gathering around her face, casting it in shadow except for an irrepressible glint of some menace in her eyes. He didn’t dare look away from her, the room darkened, the voices of his siblings abruptly ceasing. In the unnatural silence it left behind, the dinner bell rang, loud and piercing. 

Vanya stared.

A baseball smashed into the table between them, making Five jump to his feet, and two hands slammed on the table in front of him. Larger than Vanya’s. Five traced the arms up to see Klaus, teenage Klaus, somehow standing between him and his sister. Blocking him from seeing her. He tried to lean around but he could only see the edge of her face, the corner of an eye, a dark red liquid creeping out from under her bangs, dripping onto her cheeks and--

Klaus leaned over the table, “Wakey, wakey, Number Five.” 

***

Five shot up in bed to find himself half buried in his snow gear, a mitten hitting him square in the chest. 

“Wake up, wake up!” Klaus was winding up to toss Five’s boots on the bed too before he noticed the teenager was awake. Five bared his teeth in a move he refused to believe he’d picked up from Klaus, and moved to unbury himself. At least then he could disguise his racing heart and trembling hands in his annoyance.

“The hell, Klaus?” He groused on reflex while his brain caught up with what was going on. There was an unusual chill biting at his nose. Had the fire gone out? Was it something worse? His heart, only just starting to slow from his nightmare picked up again, and he cast around to find the reason for the urgent wake up call. 

No floods, no cave ins, no obvious dangers in their little home, the fire was still going in the stove. There was just a breeze that shouldn’t be there. He zeroed in on Klaus who was practically bouncing over with the rest of Five’s winter gear in his arms. The man was dressed for the outdoors already, simply grinning out at him from behind two brightly colored scarves. His lack of distress soothed the teenager somewhat, but being that it was Klaus, that didn’t mean nothing was wrong. 

Putting two and two together, Five bent to look at the light coming down from the stairwell, “I can’t believe this, did you leave both doors open?”

“Just put some clothes on, you’ll wanna see this,” Klaus dropped the rest nearby and paused. He looked him up and down and then darted his hand out towards Five’s forehead. On instinct the teen pulled away from it, “Relax, grumpy! You just slept in like crazy, and you look like shit. You alright?” 

His brother tried to go in again for the forehead test but Five batted it away more forcefully than was required, “Fucking stop. What is wrong with you? For one day could you just try not to be completely braindead.” 

It felt harsh to his own ears, he could imagine what it seemed like for Klaus. The man jerked his hand behind his back, a moment of surprise on his face before a smile replaced it. He nodded and turned back to the stairs. “Okie doke! Meet you upstairs when you’re ready!”

Numbly, Five let him go, slowly slumping forward into the padded blue coat in his lap. Good, now he was exhausted and felt like an asshole. 

Constantly being trapped in the darkness had taken a serious toll on them. Ever since late December it had been nearly back-to-back snowstorms, like the world was trying to bury them alive. It was monumentally constrictive and his options for work were next to nothing. He practiced his jumps daily and sometimes, when fuel and rationing allowed, he explored the subway system, but what he really wanted to do hung tantalizingly out of reach: The equation, the way to fix this. 

He usually did the math for his spatial jumps in his head, but his father had been right. Time travel was too big. He didn’t understand it. He needed to understand it before he tried again and he just didn't have enough knowledge. Before the storms began he’d managed to rescue a few books from the library, broad primers on the subjects he needed, but it was only a start. He needed more help.

Instead he had to remain trapped in the dark. It was torture. 

Feeling lousy, Five reluctantly pulled on his winter jacket and shoes and followed Klaus up the stairs. Sure enough, the stairwell was brightly lit, both retrofitted doors stood open, letting all the cold air in. Klaus stood on the threshold, eyes closed, smoking a cigarette and soaking in a sunbeam, completely oblivious. Did he not know how low on fuel they were? He-- 

Five stopped, realizing halfway up the stairs through his still sleep fogged brain what he was actually seeing. Sunlight. Bright sunlight. 

Klaus grinned down at him and disappeared outside, a curl of cigarette smoke chasing him around the corner. Five didn’t even wait for the door to fall completely closed, he teleported up to the top step in his next breath and out. 

The sky was blue. 

He looked up at it, open mouthed, the sensations of the cold air and the warm sun on his face competing for attention. For nearly a year now the sky had been clogged with storms and when it was visible, an orange haze had scorched the sky. They’d suffered fires, ashfall, torrential rain, and blizzards. The world was so angry for so long. He hadn't even seen the sky for months. 

It was beautiful. 

“See?” Klaus flopped back into a snowbank and stared up at it, patting the open area next to him. Five closed his mouth and joined him, the snow crunching under him as he sat, pulling off his scarf so the sun could hit him more effectively. He knew he looked like an idiot staring up at the empty sky like this, he could hear Klaus chuckling next to him, but he didn’t care. 

He closed his eyes and leaned back, soaking it all in.

“I’m sorry.” He said after a while, turning his head to where Klaus was making a snow angel with a cigarette clamped in his teeth. 

Klaus stopped, mid swipe of his arms, confused, “Why?” 

He huffed at that, because of course Klaus hadn’t noticed. Being cooped up in a small underground space with another human being for months, rationing food, heat, and light, it wore them down. Five would like to say he had dealt with it gracefully, but Klaus was a lot to handle on good days and even moreso when bored. 

The little quirks, the unnecessary loudness, leaving things around absolutely everywhere, all the little pet peeves he could feel himself developing grated on every one of his fragile last nerves. Then the bigger things, how he wanted so badly to know more about the last five years of their lives and Klaus gave almost nothing. Five had been so patient, thinking the man would eventually come around, especially when talking was the only activity available on most days. 

There was absolutely no prying out information about the days leading up to the apocalypse no matter what route Five took. Knowing what happened would help him immensely, not only in his equation but in the larger topic of how to stop this all from happening. It was right there in front of him, and Klaus just refused.

It was so obvious he knew something and was choosing not to say it, and that barb hurt more with each passing day, and he’d started to let it show. If the last months had highlighted Klaus’s worst qualities, they’d done the same to Five’s own. 

Five wasn’t an idiot, he knew he could be… difficult. Feeling left out, with the nightmares growing thicker every night, he got outright mean. Turning his own frustrations outwards. Klaus had just taken it with barely a flinch.

In the dark it had felt more personal, more dire, but in the sun…

Seeing his absolute idiot brother flopping around in the snow, grinning because he knew Five would enjoy the sky as much as he did. It was still important, but it felt less personal.

Five tossed a loose fistful of snow at Klaus, “Just sorry, you idiot.” 

***

They stayed there for the rest of the morning, Klaus cajoling him into making a snowman tableau that would put Calvin and Hobbes to shame. Five carved carefully detailed buildings in the snowbank while Klaus formed a blobby godzilla to terrorize it. They only ran back downstairs to warm back up and grab lunch. Inevitably though, Five’s sense of responsibility crept back in to nag. 

“We should get more fuel for the stove before nightfall,” Five got to his feet, stepping back from their snowman empire towards where they kept the sled. 

Klaus popped up from where he was forming a sea of pedestrians fleeing the incoming monster, frowning like a child. Five didn’t even let him get into the round of whining he knew would come.

“We don’t know how long this break in the weather will last and if you don’t want your toes to freeze off, go get the axe.” He pulled the sled over, giving their creations a wide berth to avoid disrupting them. Klaus sighed in acquiescence, leaning down to draw a monocle on a snowman about to be trampled by Snowzilla, before turning to run down the stairs for his kit. 

Five smirked and started trekking off down the snow-covered street to find a new place to raid. Given that there were no trees in the city, they’d taken to systematically running through and chopping up shipping pallets, furniture, and fences for firewood. It wasn’t optimal, most of it was paper thin IKEA knockoffs, and the rest was covered in paint and lacquer that needed to be stripped to be used safely, but it was the best they could do. 

Klaus caught up quickly, sliding dangerously in the snow for someone holding an axe. 

“You’re going to get yourself hurt like that.” Five noted calmly.

The man gave an exaggerated shrug, “At least it wouldn’t be boring. At this point I’d take anything. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I miss Jersey Shore.”

Five frowned, he’d never been to Jersey and he couldn’t say anything for its beaches. “What d—“ Five stopped, the ruined skyline parting to show something in the near distance. Smoke. 

It wasn’t entirely unheard of to see fires spring back up, lightning or chemicals could spark them, and there had been some weird fluctuations in the power grid lately too. He hadn’t seen one that big since the initial fires had died out though, and none in the dead of winter.

Catching on, Klaus traced his line of sight, “Well shit, looks like there’s stuff to burn over there.”

Pulling up his mental map, Five tried to narrow down what would be over there. It was only a handful of blocks away, a governmental district with all cement block buildings, there shouldn’t be that much to burn anymore. Except maybe…

Five felt the blood still in his veins and he was gone in a blue flash, making three quick jumps and skid to a halt in front of the Argyle Public Library. It was already half up in flames, the large circular lobby now just a chimney. 

Evaluating quickly, Five jumped to each corner of the building, trying to tell where the fire had taken hold. As far as he could tell the bulk of the fire was on the first floor on the west side, feeding off the children’s section.

Five was kicking himself. Before the weather turned, Five had made sure to prepare the library as best he could. Most of the other best resources had either burnt to the ground or gotten too damaged by weather, this was the last major hub and it was too precious to risk. So he’d tried to weatherproof it. He closed off holes with tarps and, unfortunately, he had thought to drain the fire sprinklers. It made sense at the time, the pipes were bound to freeze and flood the place, and they probably would be useless now if he had left them alone, but maybe it would have been something. 

Seeing no other choice, goggles down, Five twisted some snow into his scarf to dampen it and tied it around his mouth and nose. Then he jumped into the third floor.

***

Klaus ran the two blocks to the library as quick as he could. Even running hell for leather, the snow was knee deep in some places and it slowed him down to a near crawl. The building was a clusterfuck, the snow in the area chased away by the heat, and even the few ghosts that were around were more focused on the spectacle than on him. Some of them looked absolutely mournful at the destruction.

Of course, Five was nowhere to be seen. He knew he wasn’t that lucky. He’d still hoped, after all the kid claimed to have gotten all the sense in the family, maybe he’d choose to use it instead of doing something crazy like running into a burning building. 

Vanya appeared at his side, tense and probably drawing the same conclusions he had. 

“Maybe he didn’t go in?” Klaus tested out the lie and her returned look of annoyance showed she did believe it either.

“Find him.” She growled, sounding a lot like the fire behind them. 

“I was already going to, re-lax!” Insulted, he skidded off to one side of the building and the other. Not seeing any way in, he tried calling at the top of his lungs to no result. The pops and crackles were stunningly loud and consumed most noise in the area. He didn’t even realize he’d left Vanya’s radius until he nearly ran straight through one of the ghosts. 

He stilled, as if he’d just stepped on a rattlesnake. She was a middle aged woman with glasses and earrings shaped like laughing moons, mostly formed except for her feet, which was troubling, but she was calm. The ghosts were sparse here, he’d run so fast the horde was still back around the station. They’d catch up eventually, but for now, the few that were here seemed spared from the frenzy.

Slowly, as if she didn’t want to startle him, she tried to talk but between the lingering medication and the fire he couldn’t hear her. 

Steeling himself, Klaus stepped towards her, “Hiya, um, you have you seen a kid about yea high?” God he felt like he was talking to Lassie. Is Five stuck in the well? No? Klaus looked down at her, noting a lanyard around her neck with the library logo on it. Apparently her name was Matilda. Cute.

She nodded eagerly, pointing down the side of the building and trying to speak again. If Klaus leaned in, he could catch her intent more than the actual sound, kind of like a ghost whose language he didn’t know. He followed her direction, the alley she’d indicated was blocked, but he diverted through the neighboring building and found a way through. 

Matilda was already there, pointing up to a window above. It was good she did, because Klaus barely avoided being clobbered by a waterfall of textbooks. 

When he looked up he saw Five in a third floor window, halfway tipping a library sorting cart piled with books out the window, just letting them fall to the ground below. There was already an impressive pile in the alley, already drenched in water, but Klaus supposed soggy books were better than no books. 

“Five!! Jesus H. Christ, what the fuck!” Klaus screamed up at him but got no answer. The little shit, choosing this moment to lose all his senses. At least he’d found him, now what? Five could teleport of course, he’d probably be fine… 

Klaus stamped his feet in frustration, listening to the roar. The fire had started on the other side of the building but with all open windows, and plenty of oxygen and fuel, the blaze was sprinting to the finish line. 

He’d spent the last year watching Five work himself to the bone, taking unnecessary risks more and more now that he was using his powers again. He was smart as hell but he was also a cocky teenager. 

And goddamnit, having no self preservation was supposed to be Klaus’s gig. 

Could he trust him to not die of smoke inhalation? Could he trust him to be on point enough to not get knocked out by falling debris?

“Five! If you don’t come out here right fucking now I’m coming in after you!” Nothing. Klaus turned to look at Matilda, throwing up his hands at her. She nodded in strained agreement. “Okay Mattie, is there a way to get up there without dying?”

She lead him through a window, through the employee lounge, and up a flight of stairs, spitting him out in the non-fiction section. Thankfully half the fourth floor was gone, allowing most of the smoke to pool far overhead. It wasn’t hard to find Five, he just had to follow the loud bangs of the metal cart on the stone windowsill. 

Five was tearing through a hip-deep pile of thick tomes, loading heaps onto the cart before ejecting them out to the alley below, coughing the whole time. Klaus allowed himself to slide down the slope, landing awkwardly next to his brother. Five jolted like he’d been shocked as soon as he grabbed his arm, stilling for only a second.

“What are you doing in here, get out!” Five yelled at him, voice ragged. 

“Happy to! After you.” Klaus tried to grab his arm again to haul him out, ready to lift the child over his damn shoulder if he had to.

The brat teleported out of his grip, looking winded at the act of doing so, but his point was made. “I can’t! I need information Klaus, for us, to stop all of this! Help or get out of the way.”

Klaus was ready to try to grab him again but the warning gesture he got in return was savage. You couldn't make a teleporter go anywhere he didn’t want to be. Left with no options, he started cursing. His usual go to, hair pulling was trapped under his hat and the smoke was making his eyes water. He was about ready to start tossing books out the window at random when he remembered, turning to see Matilda standing a bit up the slope. 

“Five!” 

The teenager didn’t even answer, just tossed a dark look over a shoulder.

“What are you looking for?” Klaus tried.

“Quantum physics, mathematics relating to—“ 

Klaus cut him off, “I mean the titles, authors, what do you need?” He turned to look up at Matilda pointedly, seeing if she was understanding what he needed. She’d been cogent enough so far, but these things didn’t always last. Five, confused but probably too desperate to argue, started rattling off names, titles, and more specific subjects, and to Klaus’s relief a brightness filled the librarian’s eyes. 

The ghost listened intently, nodded, and disappeared, leaving Five staring at Klaus in growing annoyance. 

“Relax, relax!” He yelled back, “I just asked the librarian—whoa.”

Matilda was back, but not only her, several other ghosts who he’d seen down on the street were with her, all fanning out to various stacks and piles with intent, pointing. 

Four skidded over to the first stack. A young purple haired librarian had stuck her arm into the pile as soon as he’d gotten over there. He dug blindly, not looking at titles, just going until he unburied her hand. It was resting flatly on one of the books in question. 

“Here!” Klaus picked it up and chucked it at Five, the other catching it neatly. 

The next few minutes were spent feverishly digging, unearthing 12 thick books, and two unbound research papers from a special room in the back before the smoke grew too thick to stand anymore. By that point Five was too weak to fight Klaus’s pull down the stairs, the ghost librarians guiding the safe path out as they hugged the floors and walls. 

It took a while, Five was weighed down with a coat full of books and Klaus by half carrying the teenager, but they manage to hobble their way out. Vanya rushed them as soon as they exited onto the street. 

The two boys collapsed into a heap on the sidewalk, attempting to cough their lungs out while Vanya paced over them. She was trying to talk, Klaus was sure, a few raspy noises reaching him. He didn’t have to hear them, he could guess easy enough, and rolled over to tug the scarf and goggles off of Five’s face, showing a more or less alive idiot nerd.

Five didn’t even complain at the intrusion, too busy wheezing in air and clutching the laden coat to his chest. The goggles caused half of his face to be coated in dark ash, the rest white around his eyes like a hilarious inverse of their old domino masks. 

Evidently it was hard to giggle and cough at the same time, but Klaus was making a go of it. The adrenaline was doing fun things to his chemically starved brain. “Five!” He coughed, catching the boy’s attention and gesturing across the street, “You made friends!” 

The librarians were thirty feet away, staying out of Vanya’s radius but still invested in their survival. Two of them clapping excitedly. 

Five gave Klaus a sarcastic thumbs up, and rolled over to miserably lie in a snowbank. Insulted on the librarian’s behalf, Klaus looked over at Vanya, clearly looking out of her horrific ghostly depth.

“Well I thought it was nice.”

At least it wasn’t a boring day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About to rush out but wanted to make sure this got updated! Super duper busy over here, I'll respond to any comments I haven't soon. They are the fire under my ass and I love them all dearly. <3


	12. 1 Year,  4 Days

### Apocalypse: 1 Year, 4 Days

After her death, certain things didn’t matter to Vanya anymore.

Time, for instance, was nearly meaningless, requiring attention to maintain. If she let it, she could slip into nothingness for weeks, just a vague thought in the breeze, waiting to be snagged violently back into reality. Similarly, moments of anger could seem to last for days. It sustained her, but she didn’t want to be sustained. She wanted to be nothing.

Light didn’t seem to function as it normally would either, the deepest dark appearing the same as the brightest day. Her entire world lived in the middle range, with everything a low contrast smoky gray. Her vision was narrow, only extending out fifteen or twenty feet before it disappeared into the haze. She lived now in a small, muffled box that travelled with her. Suffocated.

She knew of the other ghosts lingering at the edges of her awareness. They scattered like cockroaches at her approach, scared of her. They should be. At least they were easy to ignore, just lurching, half-formed shapes in the unending gray mist. Color too was missing, the world drained of it. Well, not entirely. One stubborn splash stood out like a lighthouse in the afterlife. 

Klaus, of course, couldn’t stop begging for attention if he tried. 

It wasn’t just that he was alive, Five was as gray as everything else. Klaus was singular. He stood out in the world like the only thing in focus, radiating some pull there was no word for. She tried resisting it, to wander, to prove she wasn’t captive like the rest of the hoard, and she could for a short time, but the pull always drug her back. He was at the center of a whirlpool, the black hole in the universe, inescapable. Even after death she couldn’t be free of them. 

Every day she spent near the man, the more she felt the pull. Trapped. Used. She hated him for it and she’d rip her own soul to shreds before she let him know the power he had over her. 

At least now he couldn’t ignore her. She made sure of that. Their symbiosis required a proximity she could manipulate. 

The winter hadn’t sat well on Klaus. He was as two-faced as ever, showing Five only what he wanted him to see and saving the rest for when his attention was elsewhere, and it was elsewhere more and more often. 

As the winter slowly receded, the two brothers turned their tenuous foothold in the barren world to something more solid. They carved out something close to safety, and with it, came complacency. Klaus had fooled Five into trusting him, something Vanya would have warned him of had she the chance. This was what Klaus did before he hit you the hardest. 

Sure enough, after all the time, effort, and trust, Klaus was slipping. Or he tried to, Vanya wouldn’t let him. When he snuck off, she stood her ground. The ghosts were stronger lately and even with the drug mix he was taking it pained him to venture into the masses without her with him. He begged and pleaded with her, just this once, it’ll be fine, it’s just too much. He even tried to push through the ghosts, but he always came skittering back. If she could have, she would have smirked at him in these moments. 

She was not being kind, she didn’t think kindness was in her anymore. She simply refused his manipulation. Sometimes, when she was feeling dark, she’d let him get close to whatever he wanted, within sight, and refuse to go any farther. 

Eventually he stopped asking. 

Now, the world had opened back up, no longer buried in snow, and with supplies to last months, it left Four to his own devices. She only blinked open her awareness to watch the chaos unfold occasionally. 

Walls of the ruined city bloomed with murals that had color to her sight for a few stunning minutes before sinking into the gray. They were all in poor taste, of course, but it kept him occupied for some time before he grew bored with it and moved on to some other diversion. 

Badly knitted scarves quickly draped over every surface, rubble was stacked in bizarre piles and structures. He giggled for hours imitating baffled alien historians trying to explain why, in their last moments, earthlings made statues of their god Barney the Dinosaur.

Miraculously, he kept the chaos away from Five’s work. He was keeping away from Five in general.

The constructive pastimes bored him quickly and he turned to other excursions. Climbing precarious structures with no safety measures to get as physically high, dangling his feet and staring down at the ground far below for hours. Other dangerous endeavors joined, including some childhood favorites like setting fires, and breaking into a high school chemistry lab to see what would explode when combined.

Vanya only kept her attention on him long enough to amuse herself and not a moment longer. She couldn’t stop him and he seemed so sure that he couldn’t die, so let him test it. She couldn’t even start to care. 

After a time, when she looked, she noticed something different. He would take the drugs Five still offered, never reporting that they weren’t enough anymore, and instead of taking them immediately Klaus would tuck them in a pocket. Five never considered that Klaus would opt to not take them, so he didn’t bother to check, and Vanya couldn’t figure it out either. 

She thought that he was waiting to take two doses later, but she could always tell when he had taken them. The brightness at his edges would fade and colors would bleed out, but he remained bright as ever. If anything, he was even more colorful now. She could see the flush in his cheeks, the green in his eyes. He was still taking them but fewer and farther between.

She figured it out eventually. When free climbing up the outside of a collapsed building and staring down at the pavement from six stories up lost its thrill, Klaus started wandering closer and closer to the ghosts. 

She caught him one day, standing on the edge of her influence, stretching his arm out to the mass of ghosts before yelping and dancing away as if he’d been burnt. They were in the middle of the nearby school’s baseball diamond, the most open stretch of sky for blocks, he avoided enclosed spaces now after being trapped in one for months. Klaus repeated this. Reach out, get affected, then retreat to the pitcher’s mound mumbling to himself, repeat. 

Vanya stopped him on the eighth attempt, stepping forward to force the ghosts away from him.

Four spun, annoyed. “Oh goodie, you’re paying attention again!”

She returned the venom two fold, looking pointedly at the wall of ghosts on the edge of her vision. 

He rolled his eyes, picking up on her intent somehow, an intrusion she hated but had grown more used to, “I’m working on something, if you don’t want to help then mind your own beeswax, ‘kay! Thanks.”

Confident in his dismissal, Klaus puffed out a breath and squared back up with the ghosts, the line of mindless shapes reaching out with many arms. Vanya stepped forward again, pushing them back. She didn’t know what this was, but she didn’t like it.

Childish, Klaus pressed his hands over his eyes, feet stamping in place as he collected himself. When he turned back, he’d pasted a smile on his face.

“Joy! You want to help!” The accompanying clap was full of sarcasm. “Just gonna need to you to stand right there and sit still, mkay?”

She moved again.

“ _Van-ya_!” 

“Why?” She croaked out, feeling like she was swallowing hot coals. She never felt comfortable in this form, but it only became unbearable when she spoke.

“Y’know, Ben was a much nicer ghost chaperone.” Klaus looked up at the sky accusingly, as if trying to coax his missing brother down, but when no answer came he flipped the sky off instead, “Fine. Look, okay...”

He started mumbling, barely audible, probably trying to sort out whatever lie he would tell.

“—and I thought, what if I just attempted it? Gave it a good old college try? What’s the worst that could happen, I just lose my mind, hah, too late, amiright? Then we can be psycho buddies for the rest of time! Horrah!”

Vanya hummed in annoyance, making him wince and stop.

“My powers,” Klaus summed up sharply. “I think there’s more to them.” 

She tilted her head, as if she didn’t know. As if every ghost on the planet didn’t know. She had only hoped he would never figure out the influence he had on them. She could barely stand the control he had now when it was so formless. What if he intentionally exerted some force… what would that mean for her?

“I don’t think tolerance is the problem, I think… I think the more ghosts there are, the more beefy the powers are getting, and the drugs just can’t do shit against them anymore.” He continued. The only thing keeping her from tipping over into rage was the look on his face. He seemed as frightened about it as she was.

There were more ghosts every day, so concentrated on the border of her influence to look like amorphous blobs of teeth, eyes, and hands. There was no more room, but there were always more wanting to push in. Would there be a breaking point? Would their fear of her fade? Now that they had proven they could survive the winter, it only meant they had many ahead of them to face. Years for ghosts to accumulate. 

He was right, the pull was growing. Even without his knowledge it would get worse.

Klaus clapped his hands together in front of his face, staring out into the masses bitterly, “Dad always said I was his greatest failure, I just thought — well, what if it was this instead? The ghosts farther out are fine, so it’s me making them like this somehow. Then there’s the thing with you down in the tunnels…”

She could see the idea pop into his head before he even whipped around.

“What if we just tried it again, see if we can figure it out? Maybe there’s some way we can use your powers—”

The rage spiked sharply, causing Klaus to clap his hands over his ears and hunch down.

That’s what this had been all along. He tricked her again, like he always did. That harmless idiot act to cover up the lies. If they couldn’t suppress her, they just wanted to use her. They all did. 

Klaus was repeating apologies until she could hear them again, palms out in surrender. It only made her angrier.

“Use… Me?” She croaked out in rage, Four was already shaking his head in denial.

“No, no, Van. We could figure it out together, that’s all.” He lied through his teeth, she could tell. When it didn’t work he turned frustrated. “Please, you’re the one with the power here. I haven’t taken anything since yesterday. You could walk away and I’d be royally fucked. See?” 

He fumbled in his pocket, showing a fist full of pills, at least two doses worth. He was sharper in focus than he’d ever been, more open, and completely at her mercy. Yet he dared to pretend he wants to work with her as an equal. A prospect that had felt so wonderful the last time it had been given to her. Leonard had gifted her a moment of peace, of confidence she’d never felt in her life. She could have stayed forever out there in that cabin, wrapped in their love and they’d _stolen_ that away from her. Now he dared to offer it back only when he needed help?

Klaus curiously squinted into her anger, head tilted. “Van, I’m sorry. I’m trying. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

She hadn’t said a word, but that unnatural sense of his must have picked it up. The intrusion again rasping on her nerves. 

He knew, of course he knew. Why was he pretending? She turned her attention down to his hand again, still half extended, the sight of the pills making her stomach turn. She reached out, wanting to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he stopped fucking lying and—

***

Klaus was staring at a bulletin board. 

A heart health poster was tucked in one corner, a notice about parking validations, employee of the month, and a flu shot sign-up sheet crowding the rest. He batted at a pen hanging from a string absently before turning around to see a busy hospital floor behind him. A dark-skinned woman sat at the nurse’s station across from him, too busy to look up. 

He didn’t like hospitals, nothing good happened in hospitals. It was an absolute hot spot for ghosts, especially rowdy new ones, but he couldn’t spot a single one. 

Klaus poked himself in the face, feeling depressingly not high, and pinched his arm to test if it was a dream. Maybe he had been hurt? He checked his wrist for a hospital ID band. Not that either. Weird, oh well. 

He spun on a heel to find his way out of the hospital, wondering if there were any restaurants open who he could con a meal out of. 

Then Vanya passed by.

He did a double-take but when he looked again, she was still there. Dark hair messy and swamped in an oversized button up, she was being ushered by a nurse down the hall. She looked distressed and pent up, like she was holding onto herself by a thread. Maybe that was why she didn’t even look up at Klaus as she passed, even though he practically ran into her. 

“Vanya?” he called, instinctively following her.

The nurse guided her into a hospital room and Klaus caught up just as she rushed inside towards the bed and some dude in it. 

“Oh my god,” Vanya breathed, shaking hands hovering over him, cataloguing all of his injuries. Where the guy wasn’t bandaged he was bruised to hell, at least on the top half him that was visible. Even half of his face was wrapped up like a mummy. Poor guy. Klaus waited awkwardly at the door for only a half second before his curiosity overpowered whatever small amount of manners he possessed. The change of view revealing the man’s face.

“Creeper!” Klaus squawked loudly, pointing at him. The boyfriend, the parasite, Mr. I have a shrine of your family in my attic with the eyes gouged out, right next to my decorative corpse. 

Neither turned to look at him, the guy tearing up dramatically at the sight of her and Vanya falling for it hook, line, and sinker. 

“The hospital called the cabin, I — they said you lost your… god what happened?” Vanya brushed some hair off of the man’s forehead, carefully avoiding the bruises. 

The creep… what had even been his name. He had two names, Allison had said them but he couldn’t remember. Clarence? Leroy? Fuck it, the Parasite caught Vanya’s hand, caressing the knuckles in a way that made Klaus gag. 

“It’s… maybe we should wait until later. If you’re not feeling up to it.” He whispered, a tremble to the words.

Vanya blinked back tears, “I am, it’s alright. Whatever it is we can handle it together.”

Pervs-R-Us smiled up at her like she was the only star in the sky. “It’s just that this might be hard to hear.” 

Klaus crept up behind a curtain, not sure why he hadn’t been spotted until now but there was no reason to start. Whatever dribble would come out of this guy’s mouth, he wanted to hear it.

“You said,” Creepazoid stuttered, “that you wanted to try and patch things up with your family after your fight? I wanted that for you, I just want you to be happy Vanya, but I didn’t trust them after what we saw. I wanted to make sure it would be safe… so I went myself.”

Vanya hand stilled where it had been absently petting his hair, “What are you saying?”

“I asked them to meet me in a park outside the city and… they were so mad, Vanya. You hurt Luther, and I thought we were there just to talk, but it was a trap.” The man shuddered dramatically. “They did this to me.”

“ _Nuh-uh_!” Klaus popped out from behind the curtain against his will. “What the hell are you even talking about!” 

Nothing. Neither of them turned. He was feet away from them and neither of them even twitched. Klaus stomped up to the foot of the bed in disbelief, banging his hands on the table there. 

“Heyyyy! Yoo-hoo!” 

Ignored, Vanya shook her head, “What do you mean they did this to you?” 

“They wanted me to tell them where you were. They… hurt me, your brothers they did all this. Cut me, beat me.”

“The fuck we did!” Klaus crowed, flailing his arms at the man. What the ever-loving sparkly hell was happening right now. The last time he’d seen this man was…

He stopped, things clicking into place. The last time he’d seen him was backstage at the Icarus Theater, before the apocalypse, before Five. Before Ghost Vanya… Klaus remembered abruptly, standing out in the middle of a baseball diamond, hurting from a lack of drugs, trying to calm an increasingly irate Vanya down. Her moving towards him. Then he was here. 

So was that real or was this? 

He spun, looking around the room for any sign, landing on a white board across from the bed with a list of the parasite’s doctors, attending nurse, and the date. March 29th. Days before the performance that ended the world, several days after the fight that had blown all the windows out of the Academy. The one he’d missed. 

He turned back around, rattling on the table again to grab their attention. The table made a sound, a lot of it, but it curiously didn’t move. Panicked, Klaus sidestepped over to Vanya trying to grab her shoulder as she talked and— his hand turned transparent blue and passed through. 

Klaus clutched his hair, casting a dirty look at Lenny or whatever his name was. He was sniffling into Vanya’s shirt as she rocked him comfortingly. God, fucking god, he was maybe a ghost and this creep was feeding Vanya lies and what was he supposed to do?

Ben. He needed Ben. 

“Benbenbenbenben.” Klaus lapped the small hospital room, checking behind curtains and under the bed. Ghosts could see other ghosts right? So if he was a ghost he could see Ben and Ben would fix it, or he wasn’t a ghost and he’d still see Ben and then Ben would fix it. 

No luck in the room, he skidded out into the hallway and had to rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing right. He could still hear the various sounds a hospital would make, nurses going about their business, the tv of the next hospital room over. He could smell the antiseptic, but the hallway in either direction faded into a white fog, all features disappearing just outside the room’s door. 

Now that he thought about it, he went back into the loser’s room and looked at the whiteboard again, finding only vague loopy marks on the board instead of names. The chart hanging from the bed was similarly garbled, just the forms of the letters, not anything legible. 

Still no Ben, no other ghosts. As a matter-of-fact everything was more vague behind Vanya’s back, the scene clearest in her view. Frustrated, Klaus drug his feet back over across the bed from Vanya, staring at the tableau in front of him. 

“How could they do this?” Vanya said, trying to be supportive, but there was a look of confusion on her face still. “This doesn’t sound like them…”

Leonard, Klaus had caught the name off the chart, the one legible word there, especially with him looking so punchable right now, Klaus was sure he’d remember if he’d beaten the tar out of him. Even with his spotty memory of the few days before the apocalypse, it would be impossible. He’d been in a car with Allison and Diego (and Ben) for days trying to track Vanya down. He couldn’t speak for Luther who had taken the other car after he and Allison had a little tiff, but he was pretty sure on this day none of them were in a position to kidnap or brutalize this guy. 

Had they been at his house today? Was this when they’d found that poor woman’s corpse in the attic? 

“I know, they fooled me too. Allison seemed so nice before,” Leonard said, “I’d hoped what we saw was a misunderstanding. We know they’ve known about your powers. They were saying they needed to stop you, that you’re too powerful and can’t be controlled. I’m sorry, this must be so hard to hear...” 

Vanya shook her head, still trying to resist the idea, good girl. “Allison was there?”

“Yeah… I’m sorry Vanya, I didn’t tell them where you were hiding for a long time but she rumored me. It’s why I had them call you to the hospital. They were so mad at you. I don’t know what they’ll do if they catch you. We have to leave as soon as we can.”

Vanya gripped the sides of her head, breaths coming in gasps, the surrounding room blurred as tears gathered in her eyes. “But, they wouldn’t, they l-love me--” 

“They don’t.” Leonard cut in, stronger than he had anything else. The window panes were humming behind Klaus, but he didn’t care, he had swung around to his sister’s side in a flash.

“Nonono, Van, yes we do. We do. So much.” He quickly rattled, trying to reach out to grab her hands only to pass through. “I’m so sorry, we love you. He’s a fucking liar.”

Leonard reached out instead, successfully grabbing her hand where Klaus could not, “Your father was a monster,” He said gravely, “and they learned from him. He feared you, he was jealous of you, and so are they.” 

Vanya opened her eyes, catching sight of something in the window across from her.

“They tried to turn me against you but they couldn’t do it, baby,” The parasite caressed her arm, “It’s me and you ‘til the end of the world.”

Unfocused, Vanya just sniffled, blind to anything Klaus tried to do to counteract this monster, just looking intently ahead. He followed the look curiously, wondering what she was seeing outside. Instead, he found her staring at her own reflection… sort of. Vanya _was_ in the glass, but bizarelly it was a younger version of herself staring back. 

“Vanya, Van,” Leonard coaxed, making Klaus want to snap at him. He didn’t get to call her that. “They’re going to get me a prosthetic soon and then we need to leave. I have to keep you safe. Breathe, Vanya, breathe, you’ll be alright, just listen to me.”

Out of breath from talking to thin air, Klaus surrendered. He staggered back on numb legs and slid down into the corner. The world fading around them as Vanya paid less and less attention to her surroundings, her breath erratic, the windows rattling alarmingly. He could do nothing. She couldn’t hear him, couldn’t feel him, he just had to watch his little sister be turned against him.

He didn’t think he was a ghost, this is not how it went, but he was functionally so. He was stuck. Trapped here in this hell and there was nothing he could do. He could only pull his legs to his chest and beg for rescue. 

He wanted out. 

God please someone let him out. 

Please, please.

Please.

***

Vanya was nearly on top of the subway station by the time she realized where she was, the changes her brothers had made to the street were hard to miss. Their influence had spilled up the stairs and onto the street, waterproof crates stacked up under awnings, various useful detritus, half-finished murals up and down the block, and two lawn chairs and a flamingo in the intersection. The street was barely recognizable for anything it had been before. 

The sight of it made her heart hurt, a novel hurt in a body full of them. She had not felt good a single day since her death, but the bone deep exhaustion she had now was relentless. She kept trying to set herself adrift into nothing to escape from it, but something kept her rooted. If she didn’t feel so foggy maybe she could figure it out.

“Hey.” Vanya winced, it was so clear and close. She’d gotten so used to hearing everything as if it had been delivered through a tin can, now the world was so loud. Was it something about her-- a touch brushed the back of her arm. She lurched away with such intensity that it nearly knocked her off her feet, but someone steadied her. _Someone steadied her._

Hesitant, she turned to find Five looking up at her with furrowed brows. Five, young, alive, and in color… everything was in color. She could feel the warmth of his hand through her sleeve, could smell the spring wind. Her childhood best friend was standing in front of her and she could feel. 

Without thinking about it Vanya dropped to her knees and knotted her arms around Five, squeezing as tightly as her shaking limbs would allow. 

She didn’t care if this was a dream, she didn’t care about the sharp rocks digging into her knees or the sudden tenseness in Five’s body, she just wanted this for a moment. Only a moment.

“Klaus? Are you okay?”

With that, the moment was over, and Vanya reluctantly looked up from where she’d buried her face in Five shoulder. Had she heard him right?

Taking advantage of her slackened grip, Five awkwardly patted her on the back and extracted himself, leaning back to wait for some explanation. She instead used the gap between them to look down at her arms. Shaking, she numbly scanned down a striped sleeve to a muscled forearm, then flipped over her hands to look at the square palms.

_Hello, Goodbye._

She shuddered out a breath, settling back on her heels. Or not her heels, Klaus’s. 

Five cast a long shadow as he leaned in, resting a hand on her shoulder, looking disappointed.

“Did you take something?” He asked. Vanya scoffed at him, insulted. She waited for the rage to flood her but it didn’t, she was too full of other feelings, sadness, guilt, happiness. She had felt none of this since— no, no, she couldn’t think about that right now. 

“Hey, tell me,” Five shook her with a sigh. “What did you take?”

“I didn’t!” She stopped, startled by the sound of her words in Klaus’s voice. “I didn’t. It’s not that…”

Five’s grip on her shoulder eased but didn’t leave. “Fine. Enlighten me, then.”

Vanya fought to keep her breath under control. What could she possibly tell him? She didn’t even know. For the first time, aware of her own situation, she looked around clearly, really seeing out into the demolished city. The buildings, the camp, the row of pinwheels in the median, then as if her eyes finally focused, the rest. 

An army of fully formed ghosts stood around her, still fifteen feet out. They were unnaturally still, not jostling for attention like they usually did, not pressed into an amorphous blob of intent. They were just standing, still and silent with judgement in their eyes, a wall of people focused on her.

“Ghosts,” She choked out, ripping her eyes away from her victims—from the other ghosts to focus on Five. “There was a very bad ghost, she… it’s fine now. It was bad. I just want to lie down.” Not waiting for his permission Vanya got up to her feet (tall, so tall) and headed towards the subway entrance. 

“Are you sure?” Five tried but Vanya just waved behind her.

“Please don’t worry, I’m fine. Go back to work.” She hustled downstairs on legs too long for her to use safely, stumbling several times along her way to the rickety twin bed. She buried her face in the pillow, wondering how long it would take to suffocate, she was out of practice breathing.

The other ghosts had filled in quietly behind her, orderly. Baleful. Did they hate her because of what she’d done to them or because she’d gotten to Klaus first. Did she want to know? No, she didn’t, she didn’t want to hear, she didn’t want to think. Eyes buried in the pillow's darkness, she took a note from Klaus’s book and clapped her hands over her ears, suddenly understanding the wisdom. She couldn’t see the dead, she couldn’t hear the dead but she could still feel them. 

She peaked out. They were nearer, realizing she had no power here. There was no escape from them. 

She wrestled her breaths down, turning inward, pressing her palms flat against her ears until she could only hear the creak of the muscles in her hands, the rush of blood in her ears, and Klaus’s heartbeat. 

Thump thump, thump thump. 

The tempo lured her inwards and she let herself fall into it, turning all the new senses Klaus’s powers gave her inward as well. Further and further down until… she found him. Klaus, he was in there too, terrified like her, trapped like her. In that moment she knew his thoughts as if they were her own. She felt him swearing with everything in him that Leonard was lying, that they all loved her, that they’d always loved her. That feeling lodged in her like an arrow. 

Please, he begged, please let me out. 

_Okay_ , she promised, _of course_. Even while knowing she was condemning herself to do so. This was hell, but so was where she was returning to. At least here she could feel something other than anger, even if it meant wallowing in the guilt of a billion souls. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved. She clung onto that bleeding arrow in her heart, desperate. Hoping. Maybe, maybe she could keep this one thing. Maybe she didn’t deserve to, but she was selfish. 

With a shuddering breath and the icy feeling of ghosts hovering over her, Vanya let go.

***

Klaus threw up twice when he woke up, feeling hollowed out and sick as a dog, only collecting himself enough to feign sleep when Five came down to check on him. He didn’t feel up to speaking and wouldn’t know what to tell him anyway. Whatever he had been doing in the last twenty minutes was a blank, his mind instead filled with memories of a hospital room and a liar stealing his sister from him. 

Vanya’s ghost was near, reduced to just a smoky haze now, but closer than she’d usually allow herself to be. She was sitting in front of his bed, watching him shudder impassively. He wanted her gone as much as he wanted to pull her closer in, not sure if he loved or hated the residual sense of her mind mixing with his own. She felt clearer to him now than she ever had though he had no idea if that was a two-way street.

“Did that r’lly happen?” He whispered to her through full body shakes.

She nodded, shape blowing in a nonexistent wind, form less solid than it had ever been. He wanted so dearly to protest everything he’d seen point by point, to prove to her that Leonard was the scum of the earth, but he could barely keep his eyes open.

Instead, he just wiggled his hand out from under the covers Five had thrown over him, stretching his fingers out to her, “L’ve you, Van.”

He fought a war with his eyelids, forcing them back open every time sleep encroached, turning the world into a slideshow.

Blink. 

Vanya’s ghost staring at his hand. 

Blink. 

A smoky hand reaching out before thinking better.

Blink. 

A figure parting from the mass of souls in the room, stepping forward into the eye of the storm that was Vanya’s influence. A small silhouette, a child maybe.

Blink. 

An academy crest with sloppy latin stared him in the face, then up, across the lapels of a blazer, to the pressed collar, up long dark hair and into a small round face and straight bangs. 

Two Vanyas, side by side. Huh. Weird.

He let sleep drag him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you all, your comments are the wind beneath my wings and one of the few things keeping me floaty right now.


	13. 1 Year, 6 Day

### Apocalypse: 1 Year, 6 Days

Klaus wasn’t surprised by the recent turn of events, though he was unusually disappointed.

It was his own fault, per usual. Counter to all past experience, he’d allowed himself a moment of optimism towards his powers and, well. If his powers were going to advance, of _course_ they were just going to dig him straight down further into hell. C’est la vie and all that bullshit. So while the reality of possession was a huge bummer, to say the least, he got over it rather quickly. No use dwelling on it.

He didn’t know if it was only a Vanya thing, and he wasn’t interested in testing it out. So he was employing his typical strategy: ignore and distract. He just had to be sure to not let ghosts touch him. Ever. No big deal. Problem totally solved!

As for the distraction, it was provided for him in the form of the most bizarre family fight he’d ever witnessed. That was a high bar in his family, but two versions of Vanya beefing at levels to put the beauty guru world to shame really fit the bill. It was a peak passive aggressive war and Klaus was unavoidably stuck in the middle of it.

Awkwaaard.

In one corner of the ring was Vanya 1: the aggro smoky edition, bringer of apocalypses, breaker of worlds. Sporting a new look of near insubstantiality, she looked bizarre in the bright sunlight overhead. She was less solid than even the ghost mob was currently, just a vague person shaped wisp full of hate, all focused on the figure to Klaus’s right.

Vanya 2: The Classic Tween Version, in full academy get-up. She had hunkered down in the protection of the sea of ghosts, like a clown fish in an anemone. Who she was hiding from was unclear, be it him or Vanya 1, but she was pointedly keeping clear of both of them. Would barely even look at Klaus, and she made a huge point of avoiding her other half.

He’d been trying to not get in the middle of it, he was not a great mediator at the best of times and this was… whuff. So, since harnessing his own real magical powers hadn’t really panned out, he’d fished out a backup hobby, fake magic.

He’d found an apartment that used to be long to a kids party entertainer a while back, and amongst all the costumes just different enough from their disney counterparts to avoid litigation, was a box of magic gear. Basic instructional books, trick wands, hollow thumbs, a top hat, several decks of cards, the works.

The top hat was, of course, currently on his head, stuffed rabbit poking out from underneath the rim, and his hands were occupied with a deck of marked cards. He’d made camp in the middle of the street, just a bean bag chair, a can of green beans for breakfast, his box of magic, and an umbrella to keep from getting burnt to a crisp in the sun (again). He was all set to ignore his sister(s?) for the rest of the morning, but fuck were they making it difficult.

Every time Vanya 2 shuffled slightly, Vanya 1 tensed and twitched forward. Every time Vanya 1’s temper tickled over a simmer, Vanya 2 would flee into the forest of legs for an hour. They both could talk… more or less in Vanya 1’s case, but neither were exercising that skill.

This had been going on for. Two. Full. Days. and he was far too sober for this shit.

“Okay, this is confusing, which of you is going to change your name?”

The two Vanyas startled at this sudden words, making Klaus ping pong his view back and forth between them.

God, it was like the two of them had went through the world’s worst breakup, which he guess was accurate if they were separated like this. They _were_ both Vanya. He’d always wondered why she had felt so jagged and messy, a quality unique to her ghost, and now he could tell why. Her soul was literally torn into two and neither part wanted anything to do with the other.

“Fine! I’ll make some up,” Klaus announced, shuffling cards to hide his nerves, “Vannie, Vanster, Vanmeister—Stop me on the one you want or I’ll just pick one for yooouu! Vanya 2: Electric Boogaloo, Yaya—“

Shockingly, the younger spoke first, if quietly. “You can call me Seven.”

“You sure? It’s kinda…” He trailed off, not really able to sum up the massive what-the-fuck that was their original names.

Little Vanya peered out from the forest of ghost legs with a resolute nod. Maybe it didn’t bother her like it didn’t bother Five? It occurred to him that he’d never thought to ask her opinion.

Cowed again, Klaus just shrugged and went back to the cards.

He cut the deck in thirds on the ground in front of him, occasionally consulting the instructional book he was keeping open with a bare foot, then shuffled again. He wasn’t very good, he’d never fully recovered from the possession and his hands were still shaky. He’d felt like a baby gazelle since then, loose limbed and weak.

Vanya 2-- Seven, was watching the cards go clumsily from one of his hands to the other, less guarded.

The view made Klaus tilt his head. As a kid he’d kinda felt like Vanya was… aloof. Either hidden away in some corner of the house or at Dad’s side helping him judge Klaus’s many failures. He’d thought for years that her moving out of the house into the real world knocked some of the haughtiness out of her, but in hindsight… she just looked sad. Another dragging realization of his lack of care. What else had he missed?

Slowly so he wouldn’t startle her, he shifted to face her and fanned the cards in the fanciest shuffle he knew. It was a complete disaster, sending half the deck up in the air, but more importantly it caused the tiniest quirk at the corner of Seven’s mouth.

He stuck his tongue out at her and scooped dusty cards back up into his lap, trying the maneuver again. If this time it was flubbed on purpose to see if he could get an actual smile, well, that was only for him to know.

He slapped together the hammiest and most inept magic show he could muster, pulling props from the box with no plan, making the bunny draped over his forehead talk in an increasingly high pitched voice, and probably destroyed one of the decks beyond repair. He failed so fantastically Seven slowly inched forward in the sea of legs to watch better, the shade of Vanya even took notice.

“You’re really Klaus?” Seven prodded suddenly, mid-trick.

“Think so? Let me check,” he made a production of trying to check for an ID he hadn’t had in years, at least not a real one. With a mimed ah-hah, he pulled his sleeve up to show his umbrella tattoo instead, “accidentally” showing the two of diamonds he had secretted up there.

“Oop. You didn’t see that!” Klaus yanked the sleeve down, knocking the card completely out onto the ground. The twitch of a smile appeared again and his heart soared with it.

The unmistakable poof of Five’s powers announced his entrance into the street. Not a good sign for whatever supply run he’d gone off on, he couldn’t carry much with him in a jump.

Sure enough, Five’s voice was extra irritable, “What are you doing?”

Klaus sighed and watched as the hard-won smile dropped off Seven’s face. Damnit. There wasn’t time to think about it as Five’s foot tapped behind him impatiently.

“Magic!” Klaus twisted around and threw a fistful of colored scarves in the air.

“For who. Who were you talking to?”

Augh. Despite popular opinion, Klaus didn’t like lying. He _was_ a fan of the path of least resistance and yes sometimes that meant ducking the truth, but more often lying just wasn’t worth the effort. No matter Ben’s good intentions at having him hide things, it would always shake out the same. People would always think he was crazy and they’d always think he was lying. Or that’s how it had been when the world existed.

He’d thought the one perk of armageddon was he didn’t have to worry about that anymore but, well, here he was. He’d thought about telling Five so many times but now he was making progress with Vanya, so...

“Oh! I don’t know if you’re aware, but there are ghosts?” He said, gesturing at the wall before him his brother couldn’t see, and made a show of extending a handful of cards to them.

Five, just narrowed his eyes and turned without further comment. Klaus watched him stomp away down the street before turning back around.

“At least I’ve still got you Sev-- oh nope, she’s gone too. Okay. Sure.”

Klaus decided now was a good time for a nap in the middle of the street. He probably couldn’t mess things up if he was asleep.

***

Five would never call the flurry of motion he was currently doing to his retrofitted study “a tantrum”. He did not do tantrums. This was, generously, some aggressive reorganization. Something he would have no need to do so if the world would just. Stop. Fucking. With him.

He felt like he deserved credit for how well he’d taken everything that had been dished out to him so far. The time travel, the end of the world, the death of 85% of his family, brutal temperatures, resource shortages, and the fire that had swallowed most of his potential research base. He’d taken it all in damn stride, figured out solutions, adapted. Five liked systems, he liked clear cause and effect, and he liked problems he could _fix_.

But christ if Klaus wasn’t a problem that refused to stay fixed.

Klaus’s entire existence lately seemed to be trying to test him and perhaps it was his own fault for having expectations at all. He’d known overcoming addiction wasn’t easy, even without the chaos in their past and present, but he’d been sure they had developed some amount of _trust_ by now. Yet here he was, closed out more day by day.

He’d been forced to fall back into his old trick of watching Klaus from afar. He hadn’t gone on a supply run today as he’d told him, and instead perched behind some rubble and watched the idiot from a block away. He’d expected to find some new stash or another, some other indication of drug use but Klaus was probably being more careful this time around. All he did for the last hour was play with his toys and talk to something Five couldn’t see, if there was anything there at all.

He wondered sometimes, when Klaus went fully insane, if he’d even be able to tell.

No, it had to be the drugs again, on top of telltale mood swings, the caginess, and his energy level was all over the place, going from high speed to crashing within minutes. Then there was the way he acted a few days ago, the desperate crushing hug, the panic in his eyes. It could only have been a bad reaction to something.

If he was going to go into some bizarre relapse the asshole could at least stop lying to his damn face about it. He could try talking to Five _at all_. Klaus hated those ghosts so much and yet somehow he preferred their company over Five’s.

_Fine_. That was fine. He didn’t need someone to hold his hand, he could do this on his own, hell it would probably be easier if they both kept to their own devices.

Still simmering in his own anger, Five tried to pull himself together enough to get some work done.

His new study used to be a pawn shop from the look of it, he’d chosen it for two reasons, the first one frivolous. Umbrella Academy comics were still in one of the displays and that had seemed apt.

It wasn’t anything special, he’d only done the bare minimum to clean rubble and glass out of the shop and wheeled two chalkboards over from a nearby school. Any books he found were stacked along the opposite wall except for the important ones which were safely stored in the other reason he was here, the fireproof safe.

The few library survivors, Vanya’s memoir, and a copy of Frankenstein were given that privileged position along with a few emergency doses for Klaus that seemed silly to keep now but stayed nonetheless. With his luck he wasn’t risking anything again.

He pulled them out carefully and headed back to the small folding table he’d set in the center of the store, two mismatched chairs on either side.

The books were a very good start and included a few titles he hadn’t considered. Knowing that he wouldn’t have them if it weren’t for Klaus was not as much of a soothing thought as it should be. It just made him feel more lost. Why was he willing to help there but not in any other way?

With the destruction of the library any information about the apocalypse was even more vital, he’d said so in the plainest language he could so he knew Klaus understood that. Yet here he was, actively withholding any information that might help them. It was almost like he didn’t even want Five to succeed.

Needless to say, the last time someone had dangled obvious knowledge out of his reach for opaque reasons, it hadn’t gone well for anyone.

He tried to turn to his work, picking up a piece of chalk, but he ended up sitting numbly in one of the chairs instead. His equation was salt in a wound.

To an outside observer the boards looked like progress, crowded with numbers and symbols, but to Five he knew it for what it truly was. Gibberish. Absolutely nothing. Just fractions of thoughts, avenues he could take but without the full know-how to bring them to fruition.

Maybe he could do it. No, he _would_ do it, but he was quickly coming to terms that this was not a task of a few years, maybe not even a decade. This may very well take his entire life.

That realization was brutal.

He slumped in the chair but refused to brood. Brooding was for the others. He was a man of action goddamnit. He just didn’t know what action to take.

If his brother wouldn't help him maybe he could swallow his pride and go get that mannequin again. Maybe if he just had something to talk to--

A knock sounded from behind him, tickling the boiling anger. Maybe if he ignored him Klaus would take the hint and go back to his fun and games and leave Five to figure out how to save the rest of humanity. The knock repeated.

“Klaus, I—“ Five stopped before he’d even twisted around in his chair, blinking to clear his eyes. Because it wasn’t his brother in the shop’s broken doorway, it was a silver haired woman in a black dress.

***

Vanya couldn’t help but feel like the world around her was turning upside down again. The foundation of her assumptions in the last year crumbling along with her hateful resolve. Now, among the merry-go-round of betrayals that circled her head constantly, a new thoughts were blooming.

Mostly: What if Klaus had never known?

At the least, it was very clear that Klaus didn’t _think_ he was lying. When they’d shared a mind, she could feel it as if it were her own. His surprise and outrage had been genuine, and she clung to that surety. It didn’t vindicate the others though. If Vanya was the lowest in their father’s favor, it was painfully obvious Klaus was only a notch above her. Looking at Klaus now, spread eagled in the middle of the street, he was barely holding on to her secret as it was, even with all of the leverage he assumed she had over him.

Their siblings could have made the wise decision to just not tell him. Especially after his addiction hit a fever pitch. She could believe that. Believe he’d just been following along with their siblings out of loyalty, uninformed, belittled by their siblings as much as they did her.

This realization obviously wasn’t the only development since her enlightening time in Klaus’s head. Her other self coming forward was the second change, but she had no interest in wasting time thinking about her, she didn’t deserve it. The third was subtler, at least at first.

She realized something was different when the almost irresistible pull Klaus’s powers put out was gone. With her mind reeling she’d almost missed it, at least until the colors started seeping in. They stained the world more and more not only around Klaus, but around her.

She reached out where the pull used to be, the one she’d been so scared of bowing to, and found something else in its place. She couldn’t see it, she could only feel it, like a current in the ocean, something that ran from Klaus to her. It was thin and fragile, but she discovered in horror that they were still entwined somehow.

At first she thought it was a trick, that in her lack of attention she had given herself over to his control without meaning to. She tried to pull away from it again, drawing power into herself to leave. The world around her bloomed with color, sound was clearer, but Klaus, who had been scribbling on his leg with a marker at the time, paled and staggered, obviously affected.

They were still connected but it was obviously only one way, incomplete. She could draw energy out of him all she wanted and she wanted to very badly. It almost felt like being alive again when she did, but with that rush came all of her long dormant feelings... and she remembered why feeling only rage was preferable.

She couldn’t muster up the will to hate Klaus anymore, knowing what she did, and couldn’t bring herself to pull energy from him. It left her with barely nothing. Just a wisp of the entity she once was.

It was fine, if she faded away completely she wouldn’t mind, and apparently her weaker self was ready to swoop in and take over, just as she had all those years ago. She was the meek little husk that their father had made of her, pushing the real Vanya so far down in her own mind that she couldn’t even speak. Over twenty years and hadn’t lifted a finger to fight the Rumor, pathetic.

At least after little-her had ran off Vanya could think in peace, falling back into her old patterns by habit. Knowing what she did now, it opened up a whole other line of questioning. She’d been so blind in her grief and anger before that she hadn’t considered something very important.

What if it wasn’t just her? What if she wasn’t the only one suppressed?

Looking out at the amassed army of the dead around them, the breadth of Klaus’s powers was unmistakable. What if their father knew or realized Klaus couldn’t be controlled? Not just Klaus too, what about Ben? What had really happened to him?

Their father had tried to hold back Five’s powers before he'd disappeared. She wondered what would have happened to him if he had mastered time travel in their father’s grasp. Would he be dead or drugged too? Klaus… well, he’d voluntarily drugged himself and their family had just _watched it happen_.

She felt the comforting anger build again, returning a solidity to her hands. Their father had more money than god, three law firms, and a fleet of politicians in his pocket. If he had wanted to really help Klaus, he could have. She’d always thought it was odd that he’d let Klaus exist as he was so publicly out in the world, a walking embarrassment to the Academy. Reginald certainly wasn’t afraid to be cruel. Why had he not locked Klaus up in rehab, or just locked him up in general?

He must have _wanted_ Klaus to drug himself. The others just stood by and did nothing too, even after Reginald’s death. All this time she thought she’d been alone in this, but what if she hadn’t been?

Envigorated in a way she hadn’t been in a long time, she moved forward on transparent feet to stand next to her brother. He’d flopped flat on his back in the street, eyes closed, a card balanced on his nose.

“Want to guess the card?” Klaus mumbled, cracking an eye.

She only tilted her head in response, with her fingers barely corporeal she couldn’t even mime a number. He flipped the card between two fingers with a weak little tadaaa. It was the four of hearts.

“Cute, right?” He tossed the card up in the air and watched it lazily waft back down to the ground, “If you would like to run away too, pretty please give me a heads up so I can chase after you, kay thanks.”

Vanya settled down next to him instead, earning a surprised little hmph from her brother. She opened her mouth, or what was left of one, futily. She wanted to say so many things, to ask questions, but her speech was still frustratingly distant. Klaus seemed to be able to catch basic things without it, but this conversation required detail.

He pushed himself up to sit again, squaring in front of her

“Van,” Klaus hedged, fiddling the laces of his boots to cover up his nervousness, “If you want to say something, you can.”

Irritated, Vanya gestured with clawed hands at her throat. She thought the evidence of her damage was crystal clear, the energy her body held in its last moments cooking her from the inside out, vocal chords turned to dust.

Klaus nodded to cut her off before her anger peaked further. “I know, I do, but Van you… you don’t have a body anymore V. You can just… speak.” He tried to gentle the statement but it still hurt.

Despite her newfound softness to Klaus, there is no advice more unhelpful than being told to ‘just do it’. Her annoyance was palpable. A sharp part of her wanted nothing more than to say many things and if it wasn’t squawking out of her throat now, then it never would.

Klaus threw his arms up, “Man I dunno! You’re the ghost! You’re supposed to be the one giving me spooky knowledge from beyond the grave, I--” Arms still extended up in the air, he froze, staring at his hand. Slowly an absent smile broke out and he was off like a flash, challenging her to keep up.

He darted to one side of their supply pile to another, pulling a tarp up from some construction materials to wrench out an uneven chunk of particle board and various other small objects before looping back around to his beanbag chair in the middle of the street.

Curious, she watched him pull out one of his many sharpies and start scrawling the alphabet across the large board.

“When I was really little,” Klaus mumbled out from around a pen cap, “Dad had me use one of these babies.”

He scrunched in some numerals and a blocky Yes and No in the corners, looking extremely pleased with himself. “Ouija boards don’t do shit, course, but he said that the _idea_ of it working would be enough. It was just supposed to help me focus through it.”

Despite his eagerness he took the time to draw a caricatured picture of their father looking down disapprovingly from the top right corner, frown so deep on his cartoon face it cut all the way to his jawline.

“Don’t know what he wanted me to focus on, the ghosts were plenty loud already. Doesn’t matter, you can just use it to spell out whatever instead.” In the opposite bottom corner he drew himself, wild scribbled dark hair, heavy lashes, giving double birds to the other drawing. Vanya only stopped him when he seemed to get distracted with some fancy scrollwork on the outside edges, waving her hand between the board and his face.

He flattened the board on the ground and retrieved the last thing he’d picked up, a shot glass. He turned it upside down on the board as an improvised planchette. He looked up at her, determined.

“Okay Van, what’s going on?”

***

“I’m here to help you.”

The woman sat regally in the empty chair, silver cigarette case in one hand, its lit counterpart in the other. Completely unconcerned at the tight grip Five had on Diego’s knife. She was pristine in a way that Five had forgotten the look of, expensive black silk coat free of grit, skin clean of scrapes and burns, and hair carefully styled and washed. She was such an anachronism that he had no trouble believing her explanation.

Another time traveler. A whole group of them, a _profession_ of them.

It was more than he could have ever hoped for, but also far too good to be that simple. It stank. In the moment he needs someone so badly, hopeless, struggling to wrap his mind around his equation and all of a sudden she appears, the answer to all of his ills? The possibility he’d finally cracked and she was just a hallucination was one of the _less_ concerning theories.

Still, a treacherous spark of hope was rising in him and all he could do was drown it in cynicism before it grew too troublesome.

“Prove it.” He deadpanned, locking himself down tight.

“Forward, but fair.” The woman’s head tilted, a surprised smile winding over her face, “Name a date.”

Five considered carefully before rattling the day of the Academy’s first big international mission. It was a ridiculous thing to ask, but she merely leaned over to rest her cigarette holder in an ashtray and picked up her briefcase. Then she was simply gone.

The air seemed to rush back into the room at her exit and Five cataloged every bit of information. The request had been twofold, not only to prove he wasn’t insane but because he wanted to see how she travelled. He did a quick circle of the room, looking for any explanations other than what he’d been told. The only evidence she’d left was the cigarette, smoke slowly wafting up from the embers.

Was she like him? No. It felt… external. His mind latched onto the briefcase. It was bulky and masculine, not her style, so she must have it for some other purpose. His mind struggled to say it was the cause of the traveling, the idea of something this big being in something so small seemed insane. The power source alone should be huge. It was possible but... He didn’t know why it was harder to parse the technology existing than it naturally occuring in a person like him at birth but it was.

By chance he was staring at the cigarette smoke when it stalled mid-air and the sound of heels clacking on broken tile sounded behind him.

“You kids sure were something, weren’t you? Flashy too.”

Five turned to see her flipping through a french newspaper, the front page dominated by a newly leaning Eiffel Tower, the headline nothing but praise for the Umbrella Academy. The woman flipped the paper closed and handed it to him, red lips pulled wide.

“Satisfied?”

“For now.” Five took the paper slowly, he couldn’t read most of it but the date was convincing, the paper felt new, warm from the presses even. Maybe he could have Klaus read it for him later, make sure this wasn’t a hallucination.

“Wonderful! Let’s sit then.” The woman swept past him, gracefully retrieving her cigarette before she sat back down. The minute her fingers touched the stem the smoke came back to life, wafting up around her. The phenomena lit up intriguing lines of thought he could only stash away until a more opportune moment. For now, he wanted a look at that briefcase… if it was so vital, maybe he could grab it and jump away, leaving her stranded. It was at the end of what he could confidently carry through a spatial jump but it might be worth it.

He shifted slowly to hide his hands behind his back, anything he could do to hide the glow of his hands might give him an edge.

To his surprise, the woman’s eyes sharply noticed the motion, “I wouldn’t recommend using that trick of yours here,” She chastised with a swirl of an index finger.

“Why not?”

“I’ve only seen someone try to travel in stopped time once, and it had, shall we say, some immediate consequences,” She mimed her free hand in an explosive motion, “The adjustments that have to be made to accommodate the stopped time are astronomical, but, if you feel like you have full confidence with your powers I won’t keep you, just give me a moment to move back.”

Five hid his flinch at the jibe, unsure if she knew just how sharp that particular barb was. He circled around and dropped into the other chair, casually waving Diego’s knife around just to see if any of it made her react. It didn’t. “Fine, since you’re feeling ‘helpful’, then you can just go on back and stop the apocalypse for me."

She seemed surprised by the laugh that escaped her, "Ah, unfortunately that's out of the question. Some things are set."

"By who, you?"

"I am but a humble cog. My superiors call the shots."

"Doesn't seem that helpful then." Five feigned disinterest, turning away from her but keeping an eye on her in a shiny metal vase in the corner. Seeing if she'd move or betray some emotion. Not a twitch, just that same cynical smile.

"Sometimes the help we need isn't the kind we want." She intoned, knocking ash off her cigarette.

"So this is all a threat, then?”

"No no, you misunderstand. Certain things just _are_. Water is wet, fire burns, mankind’s dominion over this world will cease on April 1st 2019." She intoned, "Everything dies, Number Five. What I'm offering is a courtesy. I tell you this so you won't waste the rest of your life chasing after an impossibility."

Five seethed, not out of anger but because she was rattling the cage where he’d trapped all of his insecurities, pulling them forward into the light. He’d kept a considerable emotional distance from these feelings for months now and they still felt as raw as the first day he’d arrived.

No one had challenged him on the goals and his commitment to them was not as iron clad as it could be. He had little to no resources, only half the knowledge he needed, and was potentially half a century from any meaningful progress. Who would he even be in fifty years? What would this place make of him by then?

In a deep dark corner Five refused to acknowledge, the bit of himself that wished he’d taken Grace’s name, that missed the Academy, just wanted someone to come and take this task away from him. His father could appear out of thin air and say he’d handle it from here and that part of himself would gladly let him.

He hated that part but it refused to die.

Five tapped Diego’s knife on the armrest, “If I don’t try to stop all this, what’s your proposed alternative? Rotting away here?”

He watched the woman in the chrome vase as she grew pensive, “I’m not sure yet. You see, Five-- may I call you Five? You’re a bit of a special case.”

He couldn't help looking back at that. The smile had dropped off of her face entirely, replaced by a thoughtfulness that made her seem far less aggravating.

“Usually, we recruit from people dislodged from time through one event or another, take them into our employ, but they’ve always been adults.” She mused, “We’ve never had a child, excuse me, young man like yourself in a position like this, let alone one who has survived on their own in such a harsh environment. Between that and your powers, had you been a bit older I would have hired you in a heartbeat!”

“I’m not here alone.” Five said sharply, both in defense and warning.

A brief expression passed over her face, the first slip he’d caught out of her but too quick to identify.

“You mean your brother? Sweet boy, I’m sure but… How do I say this delicately, I think we both know you’ve been doing the lion’s share here. That you were able to help yourself _and_ him only spoke for your ingenuity more. You’re the talk of the town back at the office.”

Five sent her a poisonous look, but even he could admit it was half hearted.

"I’m not authorized to offer you anything yet. I’m here in an unofficial capacity just having a chat with an interesting acquaintance on my lunch break, proposing a trade of ideas while the red tape is worked out. Perhaps in the future that might change."

A vast number of possibilities stretched in front of him, all roads he couldn’t see the end of yet. Too many variables, too little information. This scenario was the most obvious baited hook he’d seen in his life, not for a second did he believe she’d told the whole truth, but there was still so much here to be learned…

“Alright.” Five slotted Diego’s knife back in its holster and eased back in the chair, “You have my attention.”

***

Asking questions wasn’t quick on a Ouija board, especially when Klaus insisted on moving the planchette for the ritual of it instead of just looking where Vanya pointed. The first few questions were small and prodding, Vanya working a vague circle around the events before the apocalypse. Where were you this day? what were you doing? Do you remember this?

Klaus wished the questions were easier to answer, the stress of that week hadn’t inspired him to pull back on the drugs at the time. Quite the opposite, so a lot of it was hazier than usual. He expected his half answers to cause her anger to flare up but Vanya remained remarkably level, though intent, frustrated at the harshest as he filled in the days she’d missed.

He’d arrived at the house after the big blowup fight, coming in to find Allison and a bleeding and weirdly hairy Luther sitting on the grand staircase the whole foyer clogged with broken glass. Luther’s jacket on his whole left side had been shredded by the exploding windows and it was a whirlwind from there. Number One was ferried away by Mom and Pogo, leaving just a shell shocked Allison to question.

He didn’t get much out of her, especially when she fetched Diego to go pull police records without him.

Vanya continued, asking about the days after that, obviously looking for something, probing into the family car trip to find her next. Whatever it was she wanted she wasn’t finding it, exasperated sighs causing her smoky form to dissipate to nearly nothing.

Klaus snatched the shot glass planchette off the board, “Van whatever it is just tell me already, the speak and spell sucks.”

Even without most of her face the dirty look she sent him was obvious but she went back to the board, pointing at letters in quick succession.

“He hid your powers?” He read out, suspicions confirmed when Vanya tapped on the drawing of their father. “Shit… it was the drugs right?”

Vanya nodded, several emotions vying for Klaus’s attention. Resignation, annoyance… jealousy. It was a rolling avalanche of fuckery when he allowed himself to think about it. Not only wronging Vanya but the old man knowing their whole lives that there was a way to turn off their powers, _his_ powers, and forcing him to suffer through it until he imploded on his own. Dick.

“Wait, why did he do it? I mean… big power but he wanted us to have a big powers. How did he even know what it was?” Klaus rattled, “Hell, I don’t even know what your powers are just kinda glowy, kaboom, pfft.”

His sister waved the line of questions down as he rattled them, but her intensity grew, spelling out ‘NOT ALWAYS HID’ then, ‘HE WAS SCARED’.

“Scared of what?”

OF ME.

Christ. Klaus rocked back, not bothering with the planchette anymore.

HE COULDNT CONTROL ME.

“When… how?” Klaus scratched his hands through his hair, wanting to be out of this conversation, “Why didn’t you remember?”

Vanya continued, the topic bringing her fingers fully back into view as she slowly tapped out more words, each letter like a rock in his stomach.

R U M O R.

Klaus felt ill. “Allison wouldn’t--” He stopped himself, because she would, she had. She’d been their father’s skeleton key to the entire world all through her childhood, the only one of them who got out of the house with any regularity for reasons she was not allowed to speak of. When the going got tough, Dad used her and she _hated_ it.

Allison was one of the people he’d been closer to in the house as a kid, after they shared language lessons for years, then other less dad approved topics, smoking, boys, skirts. She put up a strong front back then, and she knew she’d get nowhere badmouthing their father to Luther, so in her darkest moments she and Klaus would hang halfway out the attic window to smoke and vent.

Eventually she chased her escapism and he chased his own, each doing horrible things in pursuit of their vices. It drove them apart, but for those years Klaus knew better than any of them what it took out of Allison each time.

Vanya was a whirling mass of smoke now, dark and thick.

SHE DID THIS. THEY ALL DID.

The realization of who Vanya blamed confused him for a moment, because she couldn’t possibly think they all had a part in this. For all his flaws, Klaus had never once been confused about who to blame for the misfortune in his life, himself and their father. That was it.

“No, Van, come on, Allison loves you.” He froze, “--loved.”

She stilled too, about to reach to the board again.

“Allison was in your corner the whole time,” Klaus clapped his hands together, begging her to understand, “Luther wanted to treat finding you like it was a mission, because of course he did, and she wouldn’t hear a word of it because you’re our _sister_. She made him go to time out and we left to go find you without him.”

Something Pogo had told him stirred Luther up and he was scared. What did Luther do when he was scared? He went all mission brain because he knew literally no other way to handle it. He’d been a complete dick sure, but by the time they’d returned he was remorseful (and drunk) but that was a whole other story.

Vanya shook her head fiercely, gathering steam again.

THEY KNEW. She tapped the last letter three times in emphasis, THEY HAD DAD’S JOURNAL. IN LUTHER’S ROOM.

“They had what? What does that have to do with it?” Then Klaus paused, mind reversing to a year back. When he’d come in after that fight Allison had been saying Vanya was yelling about a book but she had no idea what it was about. Was that it? Reginald was always writing stuff down “for science” so there must be notes everywhere but did he have a--

“What did this book look like?”

She looked confused at the question but spelled out, RED. RH. And the strong image of throwing a similar book into a dumpster played in repeat in his head. Of Reginald writing in something similar back in his hazy training days.

“Ah, shit.”

***

Five expected it was odd to enjoy the conversation he had with a random woman who appeared out of nowhere to drop possible threats, but it was the truth. For a while they talked about nothing much of consequence, skipping from topic to topic, the woman posing vague questions that seemed to carry more weight than it would seem.

He was being tested, he was sure, but he didn’t know for what or how he was doing. He didn’t care. If she thought he had the upper hand on him she wouldn’t notice him testing her back. The whole thing was bizarre, if she wanted to do him outright harm she could have at any time. He assumed he was only in the time-stop with her out of her good graces, there wouldn’t be much he could do to save himself if she wanted to use it against him.

  


Eventually she checked the delicate gold watch on her wrist, ticking away some measurement he couldn’t guess at, and she started gathering herself to leave. It was unsettling, it couldn’t be that simple. He was left with the possible reality that she was being truthful, only wanting to talk, but that just couldn’t be.

Worse yet, what if she never came back?

She was slipping back into her silk jacket and picking up her briefcase before Five’s mouth made decisions for him.

“That’s it?” He blurted, annoyed.

“That’s it. Lunch break is over.” She smiled a little patronizing and Five realized he was caught.

“You can stop time.” Five groused, at least come up with a better reason to ditch.

The woman laughed, “That I can. Were you hoping for something else Number Five?”

Five sunk back into his seat, knowing that was a trap question, “Quite satisfied, what about you?”

The woman’s smile stuck, “It’s been... enlightening.”

She leaned down again to retrieve the briefcase, never far from her side and turned towards the door. It turned into a game of chicken, both of them seeing who would snap first, who would make the first request and give the other control of the conversation. Five’s stubbornness battled with his pragmatism as she reached the doorway, a purely performative walk because she didn’t need to leave the building at all to go away.

She broke first, “You know, I enjoyed this talk today, are you doing anything a week from now? Probably not, right?”

“I may be able to find some time.”

That surprised a laugh out of her, “I like you, kid. Tell you what, I’ll grab lunch next time. Bet you haven’t had chinese in ages. I know a good place in 1985, dumplings to die for.”

Nonchalant, Five shrugged. Why did everything she said sound like heaven and a threat at the same time? She fussed at the doorway obviously thinking, one finger tapping on the frame.

“Just a courtesy,” She started cautiously, “If you’re still on that fools errand of stopping the apocalypse, still do not recommend by the way, you might consider how… let’s just say, _involved_ your brother really was.”

Five’s hackles raised, “And what does that mean?”

She just shrugged, looking sympathetic, “All I’m saying is, to the best of my abilities I will tell you the truth... will he?” She held up three fingers in salute, winked, and disappeared.

  
  


***

“Vanya! You’re saying you took the creeper into the Academy, did a tour, and he _conveniently_ _found_ the book in Luther’s room?” Klaus was up on his feet pacing in front of his equally irate sister. Pissed that this little asshat had done something so transparent under their noses. “Found it after I took it from a locked box in Dad’s office, a room Luther would barely set foot in. The book I threw in the dumpster a week before?”

Vanya was angry but it seemed more out of habit, she was casting around rudderless in it.

“That little manipulative freak,” Klaus hissed, “He did this, he did all of this.”

“No!” The word bubbled out of Vanya’s throat painfully, and she turned back to the board, pointing out HE LOVED ME with a shaking hand.

“No he didn’t, he-- he,” Klaus pulled at his hair in frustration, words hard to get out, “He had a freaking body in his attic Vanya! He had a woman wrapped in a tarp next to a freaky shrine to us for chrissakes. He was _using_ you.”

Vanya snarled, body closest to solidity as it had been in a long time, hands clasped over her own ears, clinging on to this lie with all her strength because if she didn’t have it what did that mean for all this? This destroyed city around them? All of the ended lives? He could relate. This was all their fault.

God Klaus regretted so much in that moment. His lack of attention, just floating along behind Diego and Allison, not able to even stomach the stress without being gill-deep in drugs. What if he hadn’t been high at the time, would the woman’s ghost still be there, could she have warned them about whatsisname? He hadn’t even looked at her corpse for more than a moment, only long enough to take in dark hair over her frozen, shocked face.

Klaus gasped, whirling to face Vanya, “I can conjure her. She’ll tell you!”

It was one of the worst ideas he’d ever have but fuckit, who was he to start thinking any of his decisions through now? He’d take a momentously bad idea over letting that creep hold sway over his sister any longer.

She just glared, practically daring him to proceed and he was happy to oblige. He plopped back down next to the makeshift ouija board and scrambled to remember how to do this.

If you didn’t count that half-assed attempt at Reginald’s funeral, it had been a long time since he’d sincerely tried conjuring, not since the early mission days. He always had too many ghosts in his life and he didn’t want to invite another, but maybe it was like riding a bike?

Historically it had never been easy for him, it was tenuous and difficult and required every ounce of his feeble concentration. It was more like sending a letter than dragging someone into a room. It was up to the ghost to respond if they wanted and in their own sweet time. He closed his eyes, propped his open hands on his knees, and did his best to concentrate while Vanya glared holes into his forehead.

With the amount of ghosts around, he’d tamped down hard on any attempt at reaching out, and doing so now was like opening a door that was rusted shut. Tentatively and with much effort, he wiggled a willing connection out, scraping up all of the foggy memories he had of the bloated face he’d witnessed a year ago. It wasn’t the best. The more familiarity with the person the easier it would be, but that had done fuck all when he’d tried to conjure his father, what made him think some hazy traumatic memories would be enough?

Every instinct told him to be careful, the pull back, but caution-smaution, he’d do what he wanted.

The power he sent out into the world went from a trickle, inching out bit by bit, working out old muscles and then, whoops. Something in him gave and the trickle went to a flood, a vast wealth opened to him. The world was a field of stars behind his eyelids, pinpricks of energy all around, dense in a circle then farther out. So many, so so many. This was nothing like it had been like before, and he was suddenly aware of the scope of his capabilities here. A million consciousnesses turned to look at him at once. Every soul a connection in a network only he could tap into, a vast pool of power waiting for orders.

It was intoxicating and for once in his life he _hated it._

He tamped down on it more out of panic than practice, reaching out with the vague memory of the woman and pulled. And she was just… there. No waiting, no struggle, she was there more solid than any of the other ghosts.

A young woman, blood matting a patch of her black hair, looking sad and frustrated. She stood in front of him, eyes clear of any of the mania the other ghosts had been inflicted with.

“Helen?” Vanya choked out from Klaus’s side, stepping up to the woman.

“You know her?”

Vanya nodded, and the woman’s attention focused in on her.

“We were in the orchestra together,” Helen explained, tense, “Before your boyfriend decided to open up first chair.”

Vanya shook her head fiercely, backing away, and Helen pursued.

“I thought you asked him to at first.” The woman said scathingly, “But then I watched you with him and realized you didn’t have the guts.”

Klaus scrambled to his feet, “Hey! What the fuck.” This was a mistake. A huge mistake.

“You just ate everything right out of his hand.” Helen loomed over Vanya, his sister shrinking down to the ground word by word. “I go missing and the very next day you scoop up my spot. I’ve never skipped a day of rehearsal in my _life_ and you didn’t think that was _odd?_ How many red flags did you need? You slept in his house with my body ten feet above you and you didn’t care. Pathetic.”

“Stop it.” Klaus shouted, but it was unheeded per usual. He could get them to show up but after that he was fucking useless. Vanya was practically cowering in front of her, hands gripped around her head and he couldn’t do a thing.

“How did you get that chair anyway? Did you blow them too?” The mania was creeping into Helen’s eyes now, building up steam in her anger. On another day with any other person he might be sympathetic but no one pulled that shit with _his_ sister.

He could still feel the power in his fingertips, the interlocking paths from soul to soul like a forest sharing the same roots. He reached out to where he felt Helen’s connection in the tangle and pushed with everything he had in him.

“ _Enough_!”

It was like there was a shockwave, all the souls around him dissipating violently in all directions. All except Vanya who stayed still on the ground, shuddering a few feet away.

*****

  


Vanya stayed hunched, far past when Helen was gone, past the shock. This couldn’t possibly… the one person who had shown her kindness and love in a decade couldn’t— It was a trick this was all a trick somehow. Klaus had made her say that or Helen had just wanted to hurt her but…

Her heart hurt. She hadn’t been aware she still had one.

The world was unusually still, unusually quiet with the other ghosts gone, she was only aware of the noise they’d made in its absence. For the first time she was able to see the world for the desolation it was. A dusty, silent city of her making. The consequence of all her failures.

Klaus was in front of her, he’d given up his string of apologies ten minutes ago when she hadn’t answered. Instead he was just sitting, hands fisted in his hair, steeping in his own mistakes.

God they were both such messes.

They hadn’t asked for this life, these powers, their adoption. Something had inflicted them on this world decades ago and they had been fucking it up ever since. Would the world be different now if they had never been adopted by Reginald? Maybe, there had been dozens of other kids like them and the world hadn’t heard a peep about them. It didn’t matter much now.

Vanya shifted slightly, jostling Klaus out of his sulk. He watched her warily but didn’t move as she slid her barely-there feet in between his own, close as she could get without touching. The closest parody for physical touch they could manage anymore.

He melted at the gesture, crossing his arms over his knees and leaning on them, some of the tension alleviated. She mimicked his pose, burning her head in her arms the closest thing to a smile on her lips, bone tired and cynical, but there.

All she’d wanted when she was a kid was to be part of her own family, to have powers, to be accepted, included. In a dark way now, looking down at the path connecting Klaus and herself, she had everything.

She wiggled her foot on the path, feeling the flow of it again. One way, incomplete. A hand extended by not accepted. She was just a parasite on him, taking and giving nothing back. In a way that she just knew how to use her powers she knew this. However she didn’t know what it would mean to be complete.

They were stuck together, as they all had been since the day of their birth, broken people who didn’t know how to love trying the best they could. She wasn’t at peace. The hate was still there, she didn’t know the full breadth of what had been done to her, heart broken in so many ways, unable to even think about what she’d done. Falling stupidly into the first pair of arms that would hold her was what had caused this mess.

But she was so tired of being alone.

She’d opened herself to it before the thought was fully formed, allowing everything she was to pour into the connection as much as it was returned to her. The world flushed with color, sights and sounds muted to her for so long returning with a clarity that made her heart sing. Just as that came true she also knew the trade off, the gray shapes in the far distance, previously reachable now disappeared in a fog, her whole world restricted to a certain distance from her brother, tethered to him.

The irony wasn’t lost on her, seeing as she’d kept him in her shadow for the last year. Hopefully he would use it less maliciously than she had.

“Klaus.”

He jolted at the sound, it was her voice, her real voice. He picked his head up from his elbow and looked at her, seeing what she’d noticed after a moment. She was as solid as a ghost could be, her own pure white dress shoes still sandwiched between his black boots, pure white tuxedo shining in the sunlight.

She smiled at him, “Hi.”

“Hi…”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I got too bogged down to answer all the comments last time though fucking hell were they super needed and lovely this time around. This chapter and the next few are a bit tricksy and the brain starts making you thinking you’re a hack if you struggle too much. The comments and kudos tell the mean part of my brain to shut up so thank you for that!


	14. Year 1, 24 days

Everyone involved would have preferred that things had been handled quicker. Maybe it could have even helped them avoid the trouble yet to come. Unfortunately, they were Hargreeves to the bone. Communication was a four letter word to them and no lesson would sink in until learned over and painfully over. 

Nothing was resolved, nothing was brought to light, and for a time their lives were just lingering potential. A tension no one wanted to address.

The end of the world wasn’t kind, even in summer, and most days were filled with backbreaking work, the exhaustion keeping thoughts at bay. Between chores, exploration and a couple cases of heat stroke, things settled. It wasn’t always bad. The two laughed and bickered as normal, and they found it simplest to pretend no secrets were being kept.

Those issues were confined only to the small moments. Pockets of privacy earned through deception or stopped time where, for better or worse, the Hargreeves were made to face their own problems.

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 24 Days**

“Jelly what?”

“Jellicle.” Vanya said. 

“That cleared absolutely nothing up for me.” Klaus flipped the cassette case over in his hands to squint at the tracklist on the back. The first in a stack of tapes near his hip. He’d retrieved them after his sister had mentioned she could hear better now. He honestly had no grasp of what everything sounded like before and he didn’t pry, but he was more than happy to give her a taste of her old life again. Once they’d quickly figured out that playing violin music wasn’t a great idea they moved on to musicals.

He just hadn’t been prepared for how bizarre some of them were.

“They’re cats who are arguing about who gets to die first.” Vanya explained, her unnatural pale blue eyes narrowing as she said it, like she was on the border of an existential crisis, “...I can’t tell if this will be more or less weird as a ghost.” 

They both sat in awkward silence, glancing around at the souls who no longer formed a solid perimeter as much as they milled at a respectful distance. Some of them, both fans and non-fans alike, looked affronted by the synopsis.

Seemed like a down vote, he popped open the tape deck and grabbed a new one off the stack.

“Right. Next! What’s Miss Saigon about?”

“Tragic romance in the Vietnam war.”

Klaus gagged, “Whuf, bummer. Who would want that, let’s find something peppier. Carousel! That’s got to be fun!”

“Oh god. You’d better just let me look for you.”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 1 Month, 9 Days**

“Why do you bother with that? There’s nobody left to impress.” Five groused, watching Klaus preen in front of one of the mirrors. He was doing some dangerous-looking maneuver, dragging his eyelid down to jab a black pencil directly next to his eye. It was futile anyway. They had a full day of hauling ahead of them and the makeup was going to sweat off by noon.

Klaus’s reflection grinned at him, “Considering that, if you die you get stuck in whatever you were last wearing, yeah. My ghost needs to be on point… well, it at least has to be  _ interesting _ .” 

“You plan on dying today?”

“It would be a laugh if I did!” He said breezily, like it was a private joke. A joke Five didn’t like, but he didn’t want to give his brother the satisfaction to see how it affected him either. 

“Done!” Klaus declared after twisting his hands into his hair to make it stick up in a way he seemed to approve of. He joined the teenager in the doorway, leaning down to stare. 

“What?”

“You know, you’re starting to grow some fuzz around here, if you want I can show you how to shave when we get back.” Klaus reached out to do an irritating little tickle under the teen’s chin before Five smacked it aside and stalked off up the stairs.

“I’ll figure it out myself!”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 2 Months, 2 Days**

“I knew you weren’t dead.” Seven murmured into her arms, leaning on the pawn shop’s counter opposite her oblivious brother. He was in his work chair, scratching away in the margins of a thick textbook, one hand fisted in his hairline. He’d started tugging hard at the roots whenever he had trouble with his equation, making the skin at his temple an angry pink. 

Seven wanted to reach out and stop him but it would break the illusion. She was pretending she was just sitting quietly with him as he worked. So, instead, she laid her head on her arms, closed her eyes, and listened to the scratch of the pen. 

She was invisible to him, but that wasn’t as jarring a sensation as it might be for any other person. It was almost a comfort. She was used to being ignored, it felt  _ normal _ . All she wanted was to feel normal again.

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 2 Months, 20 Days**

Klaus was trying, he really was, but messing with his powers was like playing footsie with a bear trap. He fluctuated day by day on if it was even worth pursuing, but he couldn’t deny there was something there to dig for. The real question was if whatever was there could be tamed or if he had denied it for so long it had given up on him entirely.

At the very least he could see it now. It was something he had only vaguely felt at his most sober moments. The microcosm beneath their feet, flowing with an unexplainable force from one soul to the next. It was the key, that much was obvious, but it was volatile. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard with fewer souls around. They seem to have found some manners (or fear) lately and gave him breathing room, but there wasn’t a place to avoid them anymore. They seemed to feed into it more the closer they were, leaving him thrown into the deep end without first learning how to swim.

He could already hear his father’s obnoxious lecturing. This shouldn’t be so difficult,  _ Number Four _ . Stop being obstinate. You must be failing on purpose,  _ Number Four _ . 

What made it more irritating was Reggie wasn’t entirely wrong. Back then, he’d done everything to duck and sabotage his lessons. Didn’t regret that a bit because  _ no thank you _ , but now he didn’t even have his training to fall back on. Come to think of it though, there was someone else who had even less than him and figured it out...

“How did you learn your powers?” Klaus flopped down in front of Vanya who had been watching his failure with keen interest. “You didn’t get any training at all and you kicked all of our asses.”

A dark look passed over her face, body tensing. Shit, yeah, perhaps not the most tactful way to bring up how she’d murdered most of their family. 

“I wasn’t intending--” She stopped, emotions flickering by rapidly. Funny now that she had an actual face to read he was finding it harder to do so, so he sat back and waited for her to settle again. Finally she sunk in on herself, “I just knew how to… until it swallowed me.”

Klaus winced. He’d hoped there was more to it than that. Reginald always said their powers were intuitive. They were one of a kind, it would be useless without some innate competency built in. They should know how to do it the same way you knew how to breathe or walk.

“Leonard helped me at first.” Vanya offered, “He was using Dad’s book, apparently there were notes on us but I only saw it once.”

“Shoulda burned that thing.” Klaus huffed, and she hummed in agreement. 

He was still sore that this all started with him being so careless but a large part of him blamed their father. If the old bastard hadn’t treated them like his science project and then kept that shit in a safer location Klaus never would have gotten to it. Who put all of their kids’ super power secrets and weaknesses in a shiny conveniently stealable box anyway.

“Wait,” Klaus lurched up, “Where’s the book now?”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 3 Months, 4 Days**

Five was tapping the newest version of his equation on the chalkboard when he felt time halt. He was getting good at noticing the shift, so much he just vaguely gestured his guest over to the open chair without looking back. 

“Are you still working on that?” The Handler asked, moving over to the table, paper crinkling at she deposited her newest bribe onto it.

“I am. Going to stop me?”

A laugh rang out behind him, “Wouldn’t dream of it. It’s fascinating to watch how your little mind works.”

His writing hitched for a moment as he considered the implications. Was he giving too much away? Could she even understand what he was doing, was this a bluff? He contemplated slipping in some egregiously bad math to see if she would notice and got back to work, trying to play it cool. Between her temperament and the extremely appetizing smell of the food she’d brought, it was difficult. 

“You know, we aren’t against you time travelling Five. That would be massively hypocritical of us.” She mused, rustling through the paper bag and setting its contents out on the table. “I just wish you’d take my advice on what to concentrate on. I’ve been around time travel a long while, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we already know the rules.” 

Five turned, enticed by the food and the promise of information. Sure enough there were two plastic takeaway containers, one for her, one for him. It smelled like Lasagna. He kept himself standing by the board only through sheer stubbornness.

“Such as?”

“First off,” She twirled a fork in her bowl, stirring the meat sauce into her noodles and took a contemplative bite. “The timeline is both more and less malleable than you’d think, but some points in time are more brittle than others. A butterfly flapping its wings won’t cause any noticeable change, but if an important senator at an important day chokes to death on that butterfly… well.”

She shrugged grandly, taking another bite, seeming unconcerned with concealing the messiness of it. Baiting him with the fresh food. 

“Oh! And never meet yourself. Lost several operatives that way.”

He could imagine, paths of realities crossing like that seemed… inadvisable. It did clear something up for him though, because it meant her method of travel was different than his. It suggested they were only moving a single instance of a person across time.

Feeling confident with his small amount of leverage he dropped the chalk in its case and sat down to the offered meal, far beyond worrying about poison. There was only so much canned food and multivitamins one can eat. 

“My method wouldn’t have that issue.” He enjoyed the look of interest on the woman’s face. He didn’t get her on the back foot often.

“That would be a useful trick. How do you propose that?”

“Theoretically I exist in every place in every time, it’s just about calculating where those two axis cross. I can appear anywhere, anywhen, but once I decide that point will be locked. If I attempt to go back to a time I’ve previously visited I’ll just rejoin with the self that’s already there.” His smile was more than a touch haughty, “No messy consequences.”

She rolled that idea around in her head, fidgeting with her fingernails idly, “Interesting, though limiting. Specific locations and times are important to us and certain timeframes can get… busy.  _ Plus _ , imagine the toll on the mind. How would continuously reintegrating with alternate versions of yourself affect you? Can’t be healthy.”

Five finished chewing his mouthful of lasagna, “Fair. Then you can just lend me a briefcase and spare me the danger.”

She barked out a laugh, “Maybe, kid. Maybe.”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 3 Months, 5 Days**

“Why haven’t we told Five?” Seven whispered one night, her voice drifting down from where she sat high up on the steps. A rare move, and Vanya didn’t like it, she thought they’d agreed to ignore one another. 

“You know why.” She shot back, keeping her tone low. Both of their brothers were sleeping fitfully nearby, having to deal with the summer heat that didn’t bother her anymore. 

Seven edged down a step, apparently brave today, “I don’t.”

Vanya glared, knowing she was being obstinate on purpose. The younger of them should be less willing to tell the truth than her. Five was the last person in existence that didn’t know what she’d done and once he did, a part of her would be truly dead. Some innocence, and since that certainly wasn’t held in Vanya’s half of their soul, Seven had far more to lose. 

“You’re scared.”

“I am not.” Vanya snapped so loudly Klaus grumbled in his sleep across the room.

The younger looked at her as if that was proof enough, “He’s family. He’ll still love us no matter what.” 

Disgusted with the conversation, Vanya turned away, “If that were always true we wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 4 Months, 18 Days**

Avoiding Five hadn’t been pretty this time. They’d been delaying this trip for over a month, Vanya making sure they checked every location the book might have been before they went for the most obvious option: Leonard’s house. It was so far away, on the edges of the suburbs, and getting there without cluing their younger brother in was more than difficult.

They had set up the excursion in four steps: finding viable supplies far out, a drivable path from that location, a car to steal, and then creating a reason for Five not to come. Each step required some lie or another each worse than the last. It seemed to not sit comfortably with Klaus as usual, but surprisingly it wore on her as well. 

After the setup, Klaus made himself particularly obnoxious. Scraping every exposed nerve Five had to offer until he just let Klaus fuck off for the day without question. It was too easy to do, Five seeming to be on his last bit of patience more often than not. It left the both of them feeling dirty, but they had a whole day free for a fake supply mission they’d already run days ago, waiting in the back of a car several blocks away.

It left them here, staring down a cozy house in the Bricktown suburbs. It was almost entirely intact, as most buildings were this far away from ground zero. Only the front door was boarded up, but that had happened before the concert.

“Diego.” Klaus pointed to the broken window. 

“We’d wondered.” She said numbly, stepping through the door into the entryway before Klaus let himself in the normal human way.

The house was covered in dust and ash, but otherwise it looked profoundly untouched. There was a coffee cup she’d drank the morning of the concert, still sitting unwashed in the sink, brown stains permanently embedded in the porcelain. Leonard had brought it to her in bed, to soothe her nerves. They’d only come back home the night before, tired from fleeing her family. She could barely keep her hands steady but she’d just leaned on him and let him coo into her ear until the shakes passed.

They had a plan, the world was going to know once and for all how very special she was. She only had to flex her power in front of a crowd. They thought if she could make her family fear her, she wouldn’t have to worry about them going after her again. Perhaps the world would even understand what had been done to her and show her the same awe and acceptance as they so easily gave her siblings. Then the two of them could run away and live their lives together. 

Happy.

She drifted through the house, brushing past memories that took on a new tint in hindsight. Warning signs disturbingly obvious now. Him diverting her attention where he wanted, sprinkling in mistrust of her family, telling her everything she wanted to hear. Manipulation wrapped in the love and affection she’d been so starved for all her life.

“Who was he really?” She asked, stopped in front of a few photos on a side table, a much younger Leonard staring back at her. 

Klaus stepped back into the living room from where he was digging around the kitchen, “Who? Oh, uh... Leonard Whatever wasn’t his real name, this was his house though. Just got out of prison for murdering his dad, I think? Allison and Diego had the file we. Were going to show you but--”

“Where did he keep Helen.”

Klaus winced but gestured for her to follow him. They passed by the bedroom where she could practically still see herself cuddled in bed with that man. She’d felt so lucky then, so safe. 

She didn’t wait for the steps to come down all the way, appearing in the attic before Klaus could warn her. The tarp was still there, dried blood splashed across it, along with a dozen little pine tree shaped air fresheners, but the body was gone just like all the others. Consumed by her powers until they were burnt down to the ash that clogged every corner of the world now, not even a bit of bone for evidence. 

Disfigured photos of her family and abused Umbrella Academy merchandise cluttered the room. Her book was sitting to one side bristling with tabs and notes. She wasn’t in any of the photos and she didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Maybe he didn’t involve her out of respect or because he didn’t care enough about her to hate her. 

To the side, next to a stack of old comic books and maniacal scribblings sat the red leather book, the RH shining under the dust. She rested a hand on it, her ghostly form not disturbing the ash at all. 

“You okay?” Klaus asked quietly.

“No. No, I’m not.” 

***

  
  


Over the months Five found himself begrudgingly looking forward to the Handler’s visits. She brought gifts (bribes) each time, and had picked out his favorites early without him even telling her. He could always tell how pushy she was going to be that day by how nice the bribe was to compensate, but more and more she seemed to be running out of buttons to push and they had lapsed into less hostile activities. They discussed “hypothetical” time alteration scenarios she wanted his input on or they just played a few rounds of chess over lunch. 

As extra aggravating as Klaus was lately, it honestly was a breath of fresh air in so many ways to just talk to anyone else, especially someone like her. Despite his act, Klaus wasn’t an idiot (though Five wondered if Klaus forgot that himself), but there were few people who could go toe to toe with the teenager in pure mental power. The Handler was a match and a half for him and it was  _ exhilarating _ . 

He couldn’t tell what she was trying to be. She’d gone from threat to aggressive recruiter, and now like some sort of adversarial mentor. He didn’t know where to place her in his mind, enough that when he outright brought it up to her she laughed. 

“Is that all you think of me, Five?”

“I’m only working with what I’m given,” He countered, reaching out to knock a knight off the board, “What would you consider this then?”

She recrossed her legs, both considering the question and the new state of the game, “Hm, well. Honestly, this is still a novelty to me. I love my job and my job is my life, so I don’t often have time for distractions like this, especially with an interesting youth such as yourself.” She leaned forward and demolished his planned strategy with a single move of a pawn, “I might consider this… friendly.”

“Do you avoid telling all your friends your name, ‘Handler’?”

“You’re one to talk, do you even have a name at all ‘Number Five’?” She laughed, “By the way is your first name Number or Five, we have a pool running at the office.”

Five pointedly ignored the jibe, “Fair enough. I assume you had one at some point.”

“Those in the Commission with certain jobs forfeit their previous identities, it causes fewer complications for those who venture out into time.” She explained, a contemplative look on her face, “A lot of them are happy to be rid of them. Many of us had… difficult lives before joining, we offer total freedom from one’s past. They walk away with a generous pension and a blank slate they can make anything out of.”

The attractiveness of that offer was palpable and Five wondered if it was the reason she’d taken the job herself. 

She continued, “You know, I don’t think we’d need to change your name at all. You’ve already done the work for us. It’s like you’re tailor made for our organization.”

“Hm, it does seem that way.”

***

They take the book out onto the front porch, neither wanting to be in the house anymore. They only had an hour tops before they needed to head back but neither made a move to the car, sitting numbly on the steps, an odd pair if there were anyone around to see them. Vanya was closer to her normal self than she had ever been but she was still changed, surreal in her glowing white tuxedo. 

“We should read it.” She says after a while, unnatural eyes dipping to the closed book in Klaus’s lap. 

He scrunched his nose at the idea. It had been the point of coming out here but now that he had it he wanted to throw it right back into a dumpster. Why had this seemed like a good plan? Traumatizing Vanya again for what, to read Reginald yammering about how incompetent Klaus was? Such a good idea.

“What if instead we just--”

“Klaus.” Vanya prodded, a hint of her new sternness creeping in. 

He sighed dramatically and flipped the book open, landing it near the back. Their father’s handwriting was as pretentious and unreadable as Reginald was in life and Klaus had to scan the words slower than he normally would. The first time he’d had the book in his hand he’d only flipped through the first couple pages, saw it was their father’s and pitched it, now he was actually taking in what was written and it was a fucking mess.

He went section to section randomly, skimmed a passage and reflexively flipped away.

It was businesslike but not entirely clinical, more of Reginald’s internal thoughts slipped out here than he had ever seen in his life. He seemed constantly concerned for their preparedness, that they’d be able to handle the things to come, like he gave a shit for their safety. The “greater good“ was always held at a higher priority though, something Klaus had always thought was lipservice but seemed genuinely important to him. That facsimile of caring made other things inside even worse. 

For instance, how Diego was having trouble finding motivation in his training, so Reginald had Grace stand between Diego and the target. That section noted quite happily that, “after the crying stopped, Number Two made a great deal of progress, though Grace will be unavailable until after repairs”. The next section illuminated him on how Reggie sent Luther to the moon after the failed operation because he was unstable and no longer tenable as the face of the Academy. He justified it because he thought Luther seemed to enjoy astronomy as a child. He seemed to really think he was sending Luther on vacation instead of isolating him for years.

He couldn’t imagine what justification this fucktrumpet had for Klaus’s own baggage.

“Christ, this is messed up.” He was disgusted but not surprised. He kept aggressively flipping to find something worth the trip but not really willing to take it in, “How ‘bout you read and I’ll flip pages, okay?" He tipped the book up in the air and felt something drop out on his lap.

Vanya peeked around to look at the bundle of old folded papers bound by a black ribbon. “What’s that?”

“Probably some weekend plans for world domination,” Klaus snipped, setting the book aside the pick up the papers. Looking at them, he dimly remembered them being in that box as well. He hadn’t given them much thought at the time, too eager for his next fix, but now they seemed particularly odd. The ribbon wasn’t Reggie’s style. There were a few stacks, with one more still stuck in the back of the journal. Klaus flipped one over, seeing a different fancy script from the one inside the journal. It wrote out simply: “Reg”.

He wiggled the ribbon off and unfolded the brittle, old paper, scanning the words with growing amazement.

“Haha! They’re love letters. Holy shit. ‘To my dearest Reginald, blah blah blah, missing you, blah blah… your wife, Elaine--’” Klaus did a double-take at the paper, “Wait, his  _ wife _ ? Van! Van, look at this, look.”

Eagerly Klaus turned the page outward so she could read the dense script, watching her confusion match his own. 

“My newest composition still troubles me,” Vanya read aloud from the letter, squinting, “the violin is as enigmatic an instrument as the day I first began to play it...” She faded off, looking contemplative. He used the break to flip to the next page, finding their father’s familiar handwriting on a few. 

“His return letters are here too. God, someone married him? Poor lady.”

Vanya coaxed him to lay out the letters on the steps, each open mouthed as they read. They mentioned locations Klaus had never heard of and words only understandable by context. A few sentences were scratched out here and there so thoroughly their original intent couldn’t be read. He expected to go to the next letter and find something nefarious, some indication of the Reginald he’d known all his life, but whoever this was seemed… nice? Caring. Doting even.

“They seem… in love.” Vanya said quietly and he couldn’t find any evidence to the contrary, but the possibility sat uncomfortably in his brain. Perhaps Reginald got kicked in the head at some point and turned into the version they grew up with? That seemed the only possibility as the man in the letters and the man in the journal were so far apart.

“My violin,” Vanya continued, “The one I got from Dad. On the neck were the initials E.H. I would see him in the library with the case open, just staring at it. It’s what made me want to learn...”

Klaus understood the unspoken end to that sentiment. She wanted to learn to play it so some of his attention would land on her instead. They could all understand that.

“I wonder what happened to her?” Vanya whispered. 

Likely the same thing that happened to everyone else in Reginald’s orbit, Klaus thought, she was broken and/or dead. 

“Let’s go home, Van.”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 4 Months, 25 Days**

“Am I ever going to be able to meet your superiors? I’d really enjoy speaking to whoever it was decided the apocalypse was a good idea.”

The Handler had brought coffee and donuts from Griddy’s, the receipt still stuck to the box showing they were from the year 2004. He didn’t know how she’d known to go there. He’d never told her about the times they’d snuck out. She just seemed to know things more often than he’d like. He wasn’t sure if it was meant as a peace offering, a taunt, or both. Either way, the knowledge that she had so easily been blocks away from his home when he was still so far away from it made him bold. 

“That would be a meeting I could sell tickets to,” She chuckled, folding her jacket over the back of her chair, “Alas those particular decisions were made under the care of the previous Handler. I just keep the train on the tracks he laid out for us.”

Piqued at the new information, Five leaned forward, “The previous Handler?”

She hummed, perusing the newer books lined up along the wall, “My mentor, taught me everything I know back when I was a lowly corrections operative. Now _ that _ was a leader with vision.”

“Someone just chose the entire timeline and you follow their directions blindly?”

“Nothing was done blindly,” She turned, obviously affronted before she smoothed it out under her usual knowing smile. It seemed a harder fight than he’d seen before, especially for a woman who kept her emotions carefully controlled. “There are bigger things than you and I, Five. Things that should seem impossible, you should know that more than others. You and your siblings have only  _ skimmed _ what is out there.”

“I know.” He snapped, her words conjuring up the pull of his own powers. It was stronger here stuck in time as they were. The huge something in between jumps, urging him on, promising him things. He pushed it down and collected himself, looking over to an interested looking Handler, “I know.”

Their mutual annoyance seemed to cool the Handler’s, making her shift down into a seat and pat the other for him to join her. She was patient, and a strong petulant urge in him almost made her continue to wait, but that game seemed too embarrassingly juvenile for the present company.

“You must understand, Five, we wouldn’t do all of this for nothing.” She said, intense and more honest than he’d ever seen her, “We work for a higher purpose, a stability. We keep the timeline healthy for the greater benefit of everyone who lives in it, but no one can stop death, Five. Everything eventually ends and for this world, it just happened to be now.”

He opened his mouth to snap but she was ready to wave him down with a hand, “There will never be a good time for the end, if we delay it, it will only happen to the next generation and it will be just as unfair then. Not only that, but larger ramifications will affect things beyond just this single case. You must be able to understand this.”

He does. He really does.

“But this one killed  _ my _ family.”

“Ah.” She seemed to be expecting more of a fight and maybe Five should have expected himself to give more of one. He walked through the ruined lives of thousands of people every day, scavenged all their precious belongings, chopped up cribs for firewood... but he didn’t care. She was right, it was inevitable, but he was  _ selfish _ and this was non-negotiable.

“...what if that weren’t the case?” The handler said slowly, making Five tense, too cynical to hope.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s unconventional...” She settled back into her chair, steepling her fingers in consideration, “I think we could do great work together, Five. You’re a bit uncooked yet, but what if we made a deal?”

It was too good, too much, too perfect... but.

“I’m listening.”

***

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 4 Months, 26 Days**

They’d hid the book up near the top of one of the most stable buildings in the area, close enough to sneak off to read it without question and high enough up Five would have to teleport on top of them to catch what they were doing. 

It was a brutal read for both of them, if enlightening. It was obvious their childhoods had been shit, and while it certainly wasn’t a pleasant upbringing it had been dulled greatly because they simply hadn’t known there was any other way to live. Looking back as adults with clearer eyes, not only their own treatment but all of the others was more jarring.

They hadn’t read through the whole thing, just skimming for useful information for now. Vanya had requested they skip her sections and Klaus had respected that as much as he could.

That day they could only stomach reading it for fifteen minutes as the sun set over the bones of the city. It would be harder to climb down the fire escape in the dark but neither were ready to go just yet, so they just sat on the edge of the roof, feet dangling over empty space.

“I loved him, you know. Leonard.” Vanya said in the dim light.

Klaus opened his eyes, halting his feet as they dangled over the edge, scrabbling for a response. What do you even say to something like that?

“That’s… yeah.” He said wincing at his own uselessness.

A sad smile stretched her face, gaze directed out into the horizon. 

Klaus rolled up onto his elbows, “What was it like?”

“Being in love?” Vanya turned to him, curious, “You’ve never been?”

“Nah,” Klaus waved a hand as if it wasn’t a big deal, “Seen some people, had some really,  _ really _ good times. Never seemed to work out.”

He’d never let himself consider it harder than that back before all this, concerning himself only with the present moment. He was either sated or on his way to being so, why complicate it? Now, god, even Reginald had loved and been loved and if  _ he _ could find something like that and Klaus couldn’t, what the hell was wrong with him? If he was honest… a lot, a lot was wrong. Perhaps he was doing some mystery person a service by not seeking it out, it would just implode eventually. 

Didn’t matter now anyway, maybe Five would figure time travel out but maybe not. There were complicated passages in the book about it, Klaus could only vaguely parse them. Maybe they could help Five, but there was no way to give them to him without explaining where they came from. So for now, for whatever sanity he had left, he just had to assume this was the rest of their lives. 

Vanya watched him, sympathetic and he had a feeling she knew everything that was going through his head. She would probably understand it more than most. 

“Were you happy?” Klaus asked, wistfully.

“Yes. For the first time in my life I was happy.” She sighed, “Until I wasn’t again.”

“Yeah… sounds nice.”

They lapsed back into silence as the heat of the sun ebbed away and the sky opened up. Living in the city so long he had never imagined so many stars existed until now. It made him feel so small, so insignificant. It was comforting because maybe, if everyone on Earth was dead, at least there might be someone out there alive around some other sun. 

“Klaus?”

“Hm?”

“Remember that day when you were staying at my apartment and I came back crying from rehearsal? Would you really have set my director’s car on fire?”

“In a  _ heartbeat _ .” 

“Good.” She smiled genuinely then nodded, as if making a decision, “We should tell Five.”

*******

**Apocalypse: 1 Year, 4 Months, 27 Days**

The teleporter was present whenever you didn’t want him to be and annoyingly hard to find when you really wanted to talk to him. Today was no different. He hadn’t come to bed the night before and Klaus rounded around the teen’s usual haunts twice before he caught sight of him in his pawn shop turned study. 

Klaus and Vanya skidded to a halt at the door, realizing that eagerness had carried him there before his mind could come up with a plan, Reginald’s journal weighing heavy in the bag on his back. 

“Uuuh.” Klaus said eloquently, stepping into the narrow shop. Seven was sitting behind the counter, where she often was, quiet and blending into the background. The chalkboards were completely empty for the first time since they’d been brought to the shop. Five wasn’t working, just sitting cross legged in one of the chairs, idly tapping his fingers on the book in his hands, Vanya’s book. 

It took a second and some intentionally noisy shuffling but Five eventually turned, looking tired.

“What is it, Klaus?” He sighed. 

“I have something to say!” He blurted cheerfully, throwing in some nervous jazz hands for emphasis. It didn’t seem to lighten the look on Five’s face any but he just plowed through, “You know how you keep asking about y’know… the last couple years, what happened, why the world is blown up. It’s--”

“Don’t bother.” Five snapped, going from tired to angry in a split second. 

“ _ Pardon _ ?”

Five pushed himself up out the chair. Despite a growth spurt he was still physically shorter than Klaus, but it sure as hell didn’t feel like it today. He was exuding some big cold angry energy as he stalked over, face pure condescension.

“I understand this might be hard for you to understand so I’ll speak slower. Don’t. Bother. You think you can string me along for nearly two years, Klaus? I don’t want your scraps. I’ll figure it out on my own.”

“First off: Ow.” Klaus said, physically taking a step back to put space between himself and the sudden fireball in front of him. “Second, hold on, I’m trying to--”

“Tell me what you’re  _ trying _ to do. Are you trying to treat me like a delicate little child who can’t handle it, or is it that you’re trying to keep it from me because you enjoy knowing something I don’t? That once you give it up you’ll cease being useful at all... or is it something worse, hm?” Five stepped in again, cool expression betrayed by the tenseness of his jaw. 

Klaus gaped, looking between Five and Vanya for help but she was just as stunned as he was, even Seven had perked up behind the counter, but Five wasn’t done.

“I have been carrying you since day one here. No, you know what, I’ve been doing it since we were  _ kids _ .” He was properly sneering now, “The bank job, Paris, Beijing, Delaware, did you ever contribute on a single mission, Four?” 

“Hey!” Klaus drew himself up, “It’s not my fault I kept getting assigned lookout. I mean, oh good idea geniuses, let’s make the guy who sees stuff that isn’t there the spotter! If I called out every time something weird popped up we’d never get any-fuckin-where.”

“Priceless,” Five scoffed, “You never listen do you.”

Klaus laughed, flinging a hand dramatically to his forehead as if he was going to faint, “Oh dear me, guess so! Apparently I’ll have to make you do that too, oh great and amazing one. However will I live?!” 

“Grow up.” Five snipped, finally stepping back out of Klaus’s reach, “Or don’t, I don’t care. I’m going to save our family with or without your help.” The bright blue light swept the teenager away, the whoosh of air rushing to fill the vacated space the insulting cherry on top. 

The three remaining people, dead or otherwise stood stunned in the room, trying to gather themselves. 

“So... that just happened.” Klaus said with a nervous giggle. 

“Did you hear what he just said?” Vanya drifted to his side, looking at the space where Five used to be. 

“Mmhm.” Klaus hummed nondescriptly, scanning a look around the room as casually as he could.

“The codeword.” She breathed, “Someone is watching us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mwahahahahaha. As always fuckin love you all. Working on this as often as I can but y'know, being an adult is butts so. We are maybe about 2/3rds done with this fic now, It's gonna get fun. >:D


	15. Year 1, 26 days Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thank you for your patience, I had to write out this beast of a section all in one go which means I have 17k words in the tank for you lovely people. I edited the first half for you here because you've been super chill about waiting and I will post the rest as soon as it's edited (hopefully before the end of the weekend!)

Months ago, after the winter first broke, Five had returned to the Academy just to see it again. He’d almost been expecting it to still be on fire. That wasn’t completely beyond the pale, between shoddy construction and whatever weird experiments Reginald had stored away, it was no surprise the thing was a tinderbox. Hell, the thing had been a hazard even while they were living there. 

Initially the Academy had only been the one opulent building Reginald had owned prior to his questionable baby acquisition. After that, it had swelled like an aggressive tumor, swallowing all of the surrounding buildings across an entire city block. A butcher shop turned into a kitchen, offices to training grounds, an old tenement turned to dozens of rooms for potential children.

He hadn’t even cared much for the renovation, only making sure the public facing walls and rooms were decorated to an appropriate level of class, while the rest were just wired with security cameras and called good. It was just a patchwork cluster of buildings linked by shorn up holes in the walls, held together by asbestos and numerous bribes to code enforcement officers. 

Now, a year and a half later, it was mostly just blackened brick and twisted metal. The foyer fared the best, the pillars on either side protecting most of it from the collapse, the chandelier shattered but still identifiable on charred marble tiles.

It felt right to Five, doing the meeting here. He needed to end this where he’d started it. 

“You bring it?” He asked as soon as he felt the air shift. She was standing in the frame of the front door, bent iron gate swinging in the wind behind her, dressed to the nines in a feathered cap and full opera gloves. 

“Eager. Everything in due time.” She chided, daintily crossing the space, pausing only to tuck the briefcase several feet behind her before offering out a stack of pristine white paper.

Five took it with a sigh, not bothering to hide his impatience, and unfolded the heavy cardstock to reveal rows of tiny typed text. 

“And this is?” He gave it a cursory glance and looked up at her over the edge, meeting her pleased smirk.

“Just the Ps and Qs. Your contract.” She produced a pen and tapped the top of the page, “In exchange for our facilities, skills, and proprietary information, you will supply an amount of your time. Paid, of course, benefits included. Generous pension, dental, vision.”

“You don’t have to sell me on this again, I’m already in.” Five took the pen slowly, pretending the read the contract over as he checked the position of her briefcase in the corner of his eye. 

“Honestly, I just wish you understood what I had to go through to get this in place." She chuckled, "You’re a special case, so it’s a bit unorthodox, but I think you’ll find it fair. Typically the deal is five years of service per contract, but since we are  _ relocating _ more than just yourself, it will be a subsequent four years per additional family member. If one of your siblings would like to take some portion of the time they may be considered after a short probationary period. Your sister Allison is of particular interest to our organization, if she were to join we’d be happy to kick in her daughter for free.” 

Flipping through the pages with numb fingers, he wondered if it would really end up being all that easy. Theoretically he still had time to think, however small. Was he really prepared for this? 

He had to be. 

Five popped the cap off and considered. He’d never signed anything before. He settled with a sharp and efficient numeral 5, repeating the action on the next few pages at her instruction, and handed it over before he could think better. 

As soon as the pages touched her gloved hand her smile brightened to something sharper. 

“Oh my dear boy, this is going to be a beautiful partnership.”

***

_ Two days earlier _

Vanya remembered the abduction training clear as day. 

She’d been so eager to be included at the time, since she was almost never invited to lessons unless she was assisting their father with data collection. They had been given a general overview of what it would be like to be isolated from the group, in all likelihood abducted to be used against each other. Reginald had been brutally honest about what to expect: deprivation, coercion, drugging, torture, all like it wasn’t an if, but a when. The only softening he’d bothered with was that, since they were children there was a chance their captors would perhaps hesitate to harm them  _ as _ badly, and instructed them to use that to their advantage.

Her eagerness hadn’t lasted once the lesson progressed into the practical portion, but that didn’t bear thinking on. They hadn't been monstrous, the drills were carefully controlled, safe in a physical sense, but mentally... Suffice to say, it hadn’t gone well. What was relevant was the development of a code. A secret dictionary of basic words and timed blinks that would make the conversation seem innocent when observed from the outside, but have an entire other context to those who knew.

She wished it had been less useful over the years for their family, but it had been then as much as it was now. 

Twenty years after that first training, the few remaining Hargreeves stood in the pawn shop in suspicious silence, Klaus pretending like he didn’t want to tear out of the shop and chase Five down again. The argument was good cover, because at least he was allowed to look as frustrated and upset as he really felt. He use the excuse to its fullest, pacing back and forth around the shop with this hands laced at the nape of his neck.

“Who the hell is even alive to be watching us? Everyone is dead.” Vanya bit out, stepping up to the smashed open window to look into the street. 

It was as busy as ever out there, all the ghosts listless but solid. The ones who had died on April 1st didn’t even have any visible wounds, having been killed too quickly for their minds to retain them. Good for the ghosts but bad for them, it provided perfect camouflage. If there even was a living person out there she doubted she could tell from a distance. 

“He said I never listen to him, the nerve.” Klaus remembered to change his tone halfway through. They had to keep the charade in place until they knew more. 

Vanya nodded, breaking Five’s warning down, “So whoever it is can hear us too.” 

“Not you,” Klaus said, looking up at her meaningfully, “Lucky duck.”

True enough, with the benefit of being dead and invisible she was immune to being spied on but what good was that? She sighed angrily, gnawing on the edge of her nail. She could just run around and see if someone didn’t flee from her, but that seemed futile. 

“I don’t know who they are or how they’re still alive, but they’ll regret it.” She hissed, eyes sparking, “What do they even want?”

Klaus shrugged grandly and flopped into one of Five’s chairs, “Your guess is as good as mine.” 

A clearing throat brought both of their attentions to the side where Seven stood, meek and tiny. Vanya’s hackles rose at the sight of her, she was not in the mood to carry her weight right now.

“What?” She snapped, far from kind. Seven only mildly flinched.

“I think I saw her, the woman.”

“A woman?” She almost forgot to respond. She was so used to letting Klaus talk to her other half for her. She vastly preferred it that way, but she didn’t have a choice now, his hands were tied.

Seven nodded, “I’ve only seen her a few times, I don’t know what she is. She was scary, so I hid. She appears and disappears and just... talks with Five. ”

“Disappears? Like a ghost or like Five?”

“I don't know. I’ve only seen her twice. It's so weird. Everything just stops when she’s here.”

Vanya exchanged looks with Klaus, his expression a mirror of her own: one giant question mark. She had powers? Or something that appeared to be. She didn’t know what to do with that information now, so instead Vanya went another route.

“What did they talk about?”

Seven gnawed on her lip nervously, “Something about history? I didn’t hear… I’m sorry.” She trailed off.

“Useless. Typical.”

Klaus threw a pencil through her, “Hey! Be nice to yourself.”

Seven darted out the door without explanation, leaving Klaus to shoot Vanya an accusing look. She just brushed it off. 

Vanya knew her half of the equation was abrasive, she seemed to have walked away with the courage but also all of the pettiness. It made her mean, but she’d take it over the alternative. Seven was everything she had despised about herself, the cowardice, the self pity, the victimhood, she was the side that had let everyone walk all over her for decades while Vanya had to seethe down below. 

As bizarre as it was for her emotions to be embodied and visible, it was still just that: a private internal dialogue. What happened between herself and Seven was her business and only her business.

Curiously, Seven returned quickly with several other ghosts in tow, all looking somewhere between questioning and alarmed when they saw Vanya standing inside. They felt familiar, but she was ready to just peg them as one of the many hanger ons she saw every day until she heard Klaus gasp in excitement.

“Mattie!” He said, arms popping up in the air. One of the three ghosts waved bashfully, making her lanyard swing from her neck. Vanya connected it finally, she was one of the librarians, the one who had helped Klaus and Five in the fire.

Seven wiggled her way between them, looking up at the three adults, “Do any of you remember a woman in black, silver hair, with a briefcase talking to Five?”

To Vanya’s surprise, the three looked down at her like they not only knew her, but liked her, the Librarian in particular giving her a warm pat on the head, “Oh yes, it was such a bizarre conversation. They were talking about Alexander the Great or something? How he seemed to be having second thoughts about world domination, they were discussing how best to motivate him into continuing.” She shrugged, “I thought it was a joke but they seemed  _ deadly _ serious… if you’ll excuse the pun.” The woman tittered at her own joke.

The other two nodded, one an older woman with her hair high up in a bun, the other a middle eastern man with a professorial air. “We saw the same thing. She was very interested in his research.” He chipped in.

The woman took over, “Talked about time travel like she had experience herself. A year ago I’d say that was impossible but now...”

“There are lots of us that watch Five work,” Seven said in explanation, “It gives them hope. These are just the few I could find right now.”

“Wow, you think they… y’know. Stuff... ” Klaus tried, struggling to say what he wanted without giving away the game. He turned to Vanya with puppy dog eyes, begging her to understand what he wanted to say.

Unfortunately for her, she more or less did, “You think the others could tell us more?”

The three stilled at her direct interaction, hesitant to answer.

“It’s possible, we can ask around.” Matilda conceded, “Good news is, this part of the city is a bit of a hotspot, much easier to stay for longer around here, thanks for that by the way.” She nodded genuinely at Klaus who looked like someone had stuck an ice cube down his shirt. Vanya wasn’t sure if it was because it was a ghost calmly thanking him or just anyone thanking him for his help. 

“Y-yeah, you’re welcome?” He laughed, wide eyed.

“What about the ‘stopping’, any of you see that?” Vanya pushed, managing to keep her irritation to a low simmer.

The man and woman exchanged a look, “Usually when she shows up, the young man and everything else will stop in place. She goes around the room, looks at things, checks a few places. Then, after that, she’ll let your brother move and he’ll be none the wiser.” The woman sounded incredulous, “She said, well, she said she was stopping time? Though if that’s true there’s no reason for her to be checking her watch so much.” 

For obvious reasons the possibility of powers did not surprise the Hargreeves in the room as much as it did the dearly deceased of the city. All of them had quickly cycled past that to the more interesting tidbit of information. 

“He stopped--” Vanya began.

“But you didn’t?” Klaus finished eagerly. 

Seven, on the same page, “No, it didn’t affect us at all.” 

“That’s… something?” Klaus tried, tugging at the roots of his hair again, willing this small gain to turn into a miracle cure to their problem. 

“Is there something bad happening?” The man asked, defeated, the implied ‘again’ hanging in the open air. No one answered more than a shrug. They knew almost nothing yet and it was hard to top the end of the world, but with their luck…

“We’ll go see if anyone else saw anything.” The man tucked his head down and headed back out onto the street.

Matilda sighed, “I hope your brother will be alright, he looked... upset today.”

“Yeah, me too.” Klaus sagged back into the chair. 

“Well, know that some of us are rooting for you,” She said soothingly, “Though, could you do me a favor?”

He winced, but nodded, “Shoot.”

“When everything is worked out, could you tell Five to stop writing in the margins of the books? That’s what notebooks are for. There’s an intact office supply store two blocks away. The library may be burnt but those are technically still Argyle property.”

Klaus nearly choked on the snort that tried to escape him, having to clap a hand over his face and nod obediently. “Sure sure, yeah totally. So inconsiderate. Wow.” He was only half successful in stifling the giggles but he did make it until the librarian retreated outside.

The last woman was about to turn before Vanya called out to her with a rude “Hey you,” in lieu of actually knowing her name. It did the trick perhaps too well, startling her. Irritatingly, the woman looked down at Seven first, either asking for permission or reassurance, and only dared to look back at her after that. She smothered her annoyance and tried for a weak smile instead, now was not the time to scare away their witnesses. 

“You said earlier she checked things when she showed up. Could you show me where?”

***

It took only a few hours to realize how deeply bizarre this situation was.

“There’s one here too.” Vanya’s muffled voice echoed out from the air vent, her body halfway through the wall. 

It was sitting in the dust and cobwebs of the vent, a blunt square of metal no bigger than her hand with a small green light. This one, like most of the others had a long braided cord attached to a small microphone, pressed right up to the grate leading into the subway living area. Listening.

That made twelve so far, tucked behind rubble and bricks around the usual hangouts. More than one ghost had spotted The Handler (either her name or title, they couldn’t tell) repeatedly poking around these areas, checking and resetting the listening devices every few weeks. Recording all of their conversations and playing them back at her leisure.

Once the call for information went out like the world’s spookiest phone tree, they had narrowed things down quickly. The Handler had been noticed by many, not only her, but the long retinue of victims that occasionally flowed behind her, their wounds impressive and varied. They never stayed long and were too wrapped in their own deaths for clarity, but their presence enough was a bad sign. 

Vanya willed herself down from the vent, appearing on the one of the dirty area rugs that coated their home and casted around at the busy interior, ghosts chatting in every corner as if they belonged there.

This was the other side effect of this mystery. The ghost community, as it was, seemed eager to help, perhaps to just do something other than fade into insanity. They bustled in as long as their ghostly forms would allow them before they had to retreat to that nothing in-between, coming with scraps of information.

Bafflingly, at the center of it all was Seven, and now was no exception. 

She was standing with a few people, including a man dressed in pajamas, apparently a city worker who was helping them flush out any more hiding listening devices. They couldn’t move any of them but they could figure out blind spots, they’d take any advantage they could get.

Vanya watched them speak together easily, watching Seven go from one person to the next to ask one question or another. The other ghosts smiled at her, leaning down indulgently to make it easier for her to speak to them. They didn’t fear her, some even seemed to actively like her. 

She had somehow ignored her younger self so efficiently that she’d neglected to notice this development. What had Seven been doing the last few months? Why were they so willing to forgive her? Did they not know?

A vicious part of her rustled in her stomach, sluggish but still strong. It wanted to stalk up to every smiling face and set them straight. Make sure they knew Seven was just as responsible for their deaths as she was. That part of her wanted her other half exiled just like she was, just like she’d always been their whole life, locked under drugs and a Rumor.

She managed to temper the reaction to just interrupting their conversation. Mysteriously, all of a sudden everyone in that corner of the room suddenly had excuses to be elsewhere, leaving Seven alone with her.

“Friends of yours?” Vanya asked tightly, giving them a suspicious look as the other ghosts retreated. If they really cared about Seven they’d never leave her with someone they deemed harmful. They probably only wanted her attention to get something from her. 

Seven sighed, only somewhat averting her eyes, “Some of them...” 

“How?” Her incredulity hit Seven hard, making her dip her head forward to hide in her hair. Vanya pinched her nose at her double’s fragility, “That’s not what I meant. I meant how do you— do they not know? About us?”

Seven shrugged, pulling at the edges of her fingernails, “Yes, they know.”

Vanya was baffled, sending a look across the room at the souls watching them suspiciously, “Then, how can you be friends? They must want something.” 

“You always think the worst of everyone.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the sound of you falling into Leonard’s arms.” Vanya scoffed, enjoying the twitch of a frown on the younger’s face.

“You were more than willing to believe him over our family too.” Seven glared from under her bangs, “You’d take any reason to think they hated us.”

“They didn’t hate us, they  _ feared _ us. Since you weren’t willing to protect us, I had to.”

“But you were  _ wrong _ .” Seven raised her voice, as close as she’d come to a yell. The outburst stilled everyone in the room. She didn’t even seem to notice, her dark eyes intensely focused on her other half, “You were wrong about Klaus, what else were you wrong about? You can’t really think they’re all in on this?”

Vanya clawed her hands into the folders of her arms, incensed, barely recognizing that the subway was rapidly clearing out. It wasn’t the argument or the sudden guts on the girl in front of her (later she’d even be mildly impressed) what made her angry is that she was right, and they both knew it. 

Between her experiences here and the evenings of reading through all of the rest of the Hargreeves children’s horrible experiences, her conviction had been eroded to almost nothing. It was hard to hold the picture of her siblings plotting against her up against the images of the scared children the journal forced her to recall. 

But she couldn’t give it up. Not entirely, because if she did, then all this death… what was the point?

Seven softened, nodding, wrapping her own arms around herself in a mirror of Vanya, making her realize her own crossed arms were just a weak attempt at holding herself. 

Guilt, apparently, was an emotion they both shared.

“Do… you think this woman changed something? To make us do it?” Seven asked quietly. They were alone now and suddenly it felt too familiar. Too lonely. Like a dark, soundproofed room and a single pane of reinforced glass to talk to. 

“Would it matter? It’s done.” Vanya returned coldly, crossing the room towards the stairs, seeking the open air. 

Seven followed, the shadow of the stairwell turning her into just dark hair and a disapproving frown. She almost made it to the surface before she was inflicted with another of Seven’s sparkling opinions.

“It matters. Because then it’s just another choice taken away from us.” She whispered.

The comment sent a jolt within her, jostling all of her frayed nerves, but she had nothing left she was willing to give her. This had already been too much. 

Spirits scattered to get farther away from her as she walked through the street, revealing Klaus stretched out on the lounger, Reginald’s journal open on his lap while his hands fidgeted on a deck of cards. The man’s head popped up when he saw her, like a puppy waiting at a gate, the look only clouding when he saw her expression.

“You alright?” He asked, leaning back and forth, probably to scope out the surrounding area for briefcases or jaunty hats. 

“Yes.” No. “We found the last device. I think you’re clear up here.” 

That perked him right back up, “Then, I can?”

“Just keep it low.” 

Klaus threw his arms in the air and let out a dramatic exhale, “Thank GOD! This bitch, right!?”

“Understatement.” Vanya agreed, sitting heavily on the other lounger, trying to ignore the attentive stares of the crowd around them. Not only had the souls she’d scared out of the subway relocated here but a few more had joined them. It was thicker than it had been in a while, but not so many as to trigger a frenzy. They’d been careful to keep it diffused enough. She suspected the ones willing to linger were more bored than they were scared of her, and the two of them were the only show in town.

“So she’s a time traveling old asshat very much too interested in a fourteen year old kid?” Klaus hissed, “I mean Five’s Five, but holy shit lady.”

Seven slinked up behind Klaus, perching next to him quietly, avoiding Vanya’s eyeline. Vanya didn’t make it easy, attempting to glare her back into hiding. 

Klaus looked back and forth between them with a near full body eyeroll, “So what do we do about this?”

That was the question, and it left the three of them in an uncomfortable silence. What could you possibly do to a person who walked between time? She was extremely careful about that too, no one had ever seen her outside of her safe pockets and she could pick and choose who was affected and who wasn’t. She could be right next to them and be completely unreachable.

“She doesn’t like you,” Seven supplied softly, nodding at Klaus.

“Moi?” Klaus looked scandalized, “Why, I haven’t done anything to her yet. We haven’t even met.”

Seven was right, there had been plenty of reports she was trying to turn Five against him, and she was avoiding Klaus like the plague, they were sure about that. If she had ever stopped time near him Vanya would have noticed. Though it was odd. If she really hated Klaus she could easily have slipped him poison or a good old fashioned knife in the back. She obviously wasn’t adverse to murder given her ghost entourage but she chose not to.

“She knows about our powers so, maybe it’s that?” Vanya guessed tiredly, “Though if she knew ghosts could see her, you think she’d have been more careful. Besides, we’re not a threat, we can’t even touch her.”

“How does she even know where he is all the time?” Seven nodded, “We’re missing something.”

Klaus' fingers were clenched white around the book’s edges, gaze distant. Vanya waved a pale hand in front of his face, making him jump and look up.

“You okay?”

“Hm? Yeah.” Klaus said unconvincingly, fingers drumming on the book cover anxiously, “It’s just, what does she even want? If she wanted the world to end it’s already done. If she’s trying to keep us from fixing it I mean… there are easier ways to do that. Why is she going to all this effort?”

Even with dozens of people coming forward, there were still plenty of holes in time, and it wasn’t like the woman was wandering around muttering her evil plans to herself. All they had were what she was willing to tell Five already and, given her other actions, those were possibly all fabricated. 

“It would be useful if your of your ‘friends’ coughed up what they saw the last few days.” Vanya shot acidly to Seven. 

“They’re doing their best,” Seven said, “We’re not all rooted here like you are. We can only hold on so long.”

“Wait, what?” Klaus perked up.

“There are still those spots near 5th and Court we can have someone go look at,” Seven tried, “Maybe there’s something there?”

“Can’t imagine what. That whole neighborhood is burnt out.”

“I have an idea!” Klaus flapped his arms between them, forcibly disrupting their glaring match, “You should go look. Both of you.  _ Together _ .”

“You want to go all the way over there?” That intersection wasn’t geographically far away but there was a toppled skyscraper between here and there. It would require either a massive detour or a long trek through dark subway tunnels. 

“Nope. I’m good here,”

“What? You want to stay here… alone?” She gave a meaningful look at the amassed ghosts to try to illustrate how collosal of a bad idea that was. The two of them hadn’t been apart in nearly a year, with Klaus depending almost solely on her protection to keep from getting mobbed, something that was even more important than ever after the little possession incident. He hadn’t tangled with the ghosts alone since then.

“Yeah, no problem!” Bafflingly he just waved a hand, his confidence almost fooling her, but she wasn’t that much of an idiot.

“Klaus, what are you up to?”

“Nothing!” His voice pitched up, only holding up his innocent act a few minutes under her scrutiny, “Okay okay, fine. Look, we know she’s tracking me somehow to avoid me? If I go with you touring all of her greatest hits, she’s going to know something is up. Besides, I have other things I can work on here.”

There was always something wrong with the world when Klaus started making sense, enough she wanted to fight him just for the sake of it especially since the book he was still gripping tightly seemed very apparent all of a sudden.

Klaus sighed and rolled up onto his feet, looking calmer than she’d ever seen him, “Van, I can handle it. Let me handle it.”

Vanya shook her head looking out at the now very attentive ghosts with suspicion, “What if...”

“They want to keep Five safe as much as we do,” He reasoned, turning in a circle to address them, “You’ve all seen it! This kid is the only chance any of us have to return the world to the way it was before. You guys want to be alive again, right?”

A few more ghosts filtered in, flickering into existence on the edges, men, women and children with a clarity in their eyes that had been missing for so long. 

“I’m going to try to be honest here, I don’t know if we can stop the end of the world or how long it will take us. What we do know for sure is that, if anyone can, it’s that idiot kid, and this ‘Handler’ is trying to stop him. She’s standing between you and your old lives.” Klaus continued, “We need to figure out what she’s doing and keep her creepy little mitts off  _ our _ boy.”

To Vanya’s surprise, a wash of nods and murmurs fluttered through the crowd.

“Good!” Klaus turned back to Vanya, “See? We’re all on the same page here. No problema.”

Enter: A Problem.

“Does she actually want to fix it?” A disbelieving voice snapped their attention back. A woman broke from the crowd, dressed in a tasteful dress and shawl, hair pinned up like she had somewhere to go. She’d be beautiful if her whole left side wasn’t clotted with blood, arm in four bent sections. To call the look she was giving Vanya as just “angry” would be very kind, she was below this woman’s anger, she was scum.

Klaus bristled, “Of course she does.”

“I was in the mezzanine that night. I saw what she did. When the ceiling collapsed on us she was  _ smiling _ .” The woman didn’t flinch, pinning her where she stood, “So, forgive me if I doubt that.”

The events of the day, the month even, piled on top of her and she could feel her soul creak under the pressure. The weight of thousands of eyes shifting to stare at her just the newest straw. Standing there, it felt like she couldn’t breathe, even though she didn’t have any lungs, pinpricks of panic coming back to her like a limb regaining circulation.

Because she didn’t know if she regretted it or not. 

A better person would say yes in a heartbeat. Seven might. Vanya was not a good person. She was selfish. Callous. Angry. Looking back at what the world had been before, that anger that couldn’t quite be quashed, even now. 

A greedy, short sighted, and bigoted world. A world that had watched a man literally purchase seven children, put them in front of men with guns, and  _ cheered _ . So easily dazzled by the cute little uniforms and the branding they bent over backwards to ignore anything else. She’d thought for a moment, a bare moment, that the public simply hadn't known. She thought after she released her book, that they would read what had been done to them that there would be some action taken. 

She hadn’t expected Reginald to be dragged out onto the streets, but there was barely a peep. All they had been interested in was seeing what dirt they could get on Allison Hargreeves and when there wasn’t anything sufficiently scandalous, they moved on. 

(A mutinous part of her questioned if she was just jealous. What if she was just dressing up her envy in the costume of righteousness? What if it was both? The thought was like the sun, too painful to look at.) 

That night, she hadn’t set out to end the world. She hadn’t set out to harm anyone, but with the power was so intricately tied up with years of buried spite, and it had run free, feeding on itself in an infinite loop. 

Perhaps she could have controlled it if her siblings hadn’t rushed in, if she hadn’t seen it as confirmation of all of her fears, If Allison hadn’t opened her mouth. Maybe if Luther hadn’t gotten into a screaming match with Leonard.

She hadn’t been able to hear what they were saying over the chords humming in her ears, but she remembered looking over to see Leonard standing just off stage, gleeful, laughing at an incensed Luther. She remembered how Number One snap out like a snake, one meaty fist connecting with Leonard’s face, blood spraying around it, knocking his new eye out on the floor. 

While her siblings watched, Leonard, face nearly caved in, sightless, then staggered back into one of the white threads of energy that licked around the edge of the stage like musical fire. Her power shredded him before he hit the floor. The one man she’d loved most in the world just gone. 

Perhaps there had been no coming back from that but it was a lie to say she had no control in that last moment. 

It wasn’t a coincidence that, when her power diffused out into the atmosphere, reducing humanity to ash, that her siblings were spared. She didn’t know what part of her protected them. Was it some vestigial love that was trying to spare them, or did she just want to make them watch as everything they ever love burned around them. 

In the end it didn’t matter, the resulting boom that demolished the city liquified their insides, all of them dropping dead where they stood. 

If a better person had her powers, would they have been able to pull back? Would they have the presence of mind to remember that not only her family, but  _ every _ person in the world was a product of forces largely beyond their control. Would a better person remember that most everyone had a monster in their life, a Leonard, a Reginald, or a system that failed them. 

These were not new thoughts. Ghosts didn’t dream, but they had nightmares. These were hers.

  
  


Vanya looked up at the woman, standing resolutely though obviously still afraid of her, broken and bloodied. One ear was missing, likely erased by falling debris, but the other had a little dangling cat with rhinestone eyes. Her left hand, still hanging on by a thread, wore a modest ring. Vanya could picture it clearly, this woman going out with her wife or husband that night. They couldn’t afford to go out often, maybe it was their anniversary and this was their splurge to go out to the orchestra. They got cheaper seats in the mezzanine, talking excitedly between each other, browsing the program. 

And then Vanya had ruined their life. 

She was their monster. A worse one than had ever been inflicted on her.

“I…” Vanya felt her throat close, like it was scarred again by her powers. She looked down at her hands, worried she’d see the charred crumbling fingers again but instead pale, faintly glowing digits greeted her, a casual exhibition of her power. Not much better. 

“Van,” Klaus said lowly. She looked up. His face held no answers, no escape for her. He looked as lost as she did, but he stood next to her despite the growing heat from the crowd. Their mood had curdled further with her silence. 

Squaring herself as best she could, Vanya stepped forward, “I do want to fix this. I never wanted--” She halted the lie, breathed and tried again.

“Months back I would have said no, and it would have been only because I couldn’t face what I’d done, but I do now. I deserve your hatred. My actions caused this and I expect nothing from you until my actions fix this.” 

The words were insufficient and tepid but she had nothing better. How do you apologize for genocide? The best she could do was just not flinch away from that reality. 

There was no change in the woman, or the crowd, their expressions were hard to look at but she made herself scan the crowd in a way she hadn’t before. To recognize the individual lives instead of the mass. 

Among them, the only one that had changed was Seven. Ever since she’d appeared the girl had never quite looked her in the eye. She’d always attributed it to fear, but maybe she was wrong. Seven now stared at her directly, the first time since they’d made their agreement in the mirror before the concert. 

Now Vanya was the one who had to look away, more comfortable looking at her victims than herself.

“For what little it’s worth,” Vanya’s voice snagged, “I am sorry.”

“We’ll see.” The woman said after a moment. Her face provided no comfort, just stony coldness and a river of perpetual blood down her side. “If not, you will be.”

***

Klaus’s suggestion to leave the subway camp seemed to appeal more to Vanya after that. She followed along behind Seven like the ghosts they were supposed to be, quiet and unreadable each time Seven looked over her shoulder to check she was still there.

There were a couple locations pointed out by her various witnesses all within the borough in seemingly random patterns. They had already hit a few with no success and this one seemed to be no different. She'd been told to look for Carlton Deli but the ghost had neglected to mention that everything on this side of the block had burnt down. She made an effort, sifting through sections of the rubble to look for anything out of the ordinary but it became clear quickly that it was all for nothing.

Might as well head on to the next place, they could bring more back to look better later. Seven turned again to find Vanya, surprised to not find her directly behind as she had ben for some time. It wasn't odd for Seven to lose time, it was part and parcel with ghosthood, but she'd thought she had another hour before she started fading. After a quick internal check she scanned around, looking across the wide street to the other side of the block and finally spotted her.

Vanya was sitting on a swing, eyes looking out at the tall brick elementary school across from her, completely unreadable. 

It was a bizarre feeling, to not know what your other half is thinking. Seven had thought she could predict her but now she wasn't so sure. Vanya had surprised her today. Now she just felt... adrift, cut off even more from this aspect of herself. If she didn't know the feeling wasn't available to the other woman, she would have sworn she was sad. There had to be something she could do, they hadn't gone to years of therapy for nothing, 

Hesitantly, Seven edged up, picking across the small playground and pulled herself up into the other swing. Vanya barely reacted, just giving her a flicker of a glance before she looked back out.

The grass here was dead, it was dead most places. Whatever effect she'd had on the world it made it difficult for plants to grow, only the most stubborn of weeds thrived now. They couldn't even swing, the equipment only swaying with the wind. 

“They’ll come around.” Seven tried, “It takes time.”

The taller ghost grimaced, either insulted by her sympathy or just not believing her. Maybe it was even fair. 

“You asked earlier, how I can be friends with them. Do you want to know?”

Vanya edged a look over and it was likely the best she was going to get. God sometimes she wondered if this half of herself could give Diego and Luther a run for their money in the emotionally pent up posturing department. She sighed and pushed her long hair behind her ears, trying to figure out where to begin. 

“When they first saw me after the possession, I was… clouded still,” Seven twisted her fingers together around the links of the swing, “But seeing Five and Klaus I just-- I wanted to stay.” 

An understanding hum rattled out of the taller woman, eyes going faraway. Another thing they had in common. She settled back and tried to explain the best she could.

Those first few days she’d been such a mess for Seven, the slightest provocation sending her into terror or tears. She hadn’t even understood when she was or where she was, but she knew she had done something awful. Just a terrified ghost with a new thing to haunt and she was satisfied with that. It was a complete surprise when the first ghost had come over to console her, even moreso when it kept happening. 

A weird community was forming in the dead city. A network of wildly different people who suddenly all had something in common. Death made all of them equals and sadness brought out sympathy. In the shadow of their tragedy the souls gained a comraderie and, from that, grew a support structure. Those who had regained their mind helping others to do so, to work through some of their grief or anger.

For days they coddled her until her mind cleared and the memories came with it, even if she wished they hadn't. 

“There wasn’t anything to do other than talk with the others. I told them everything.” Seven shrugged, “It went well with some, badly with others. The ones who stayed, well... after that they started telling me their stories back.”

There had been far from a consensus on how to treat her, but her appearance gained her enough leeway for safety. No one was in the mood to scream down a kid. Even now some still hated her, but they tended to stay away, especially after Klaus forcefully dismissed all of them back into the nothing.

That day had actually been a benefit in a lot of ways. They were merely raw consciousness, and when they had been packed together so closely, their minds and emotions had tainted the souls around them until it was a soup of pain and anger feeding on itself. Once they had been scattered it had afforded each of them the moment to collect their thoughts for the first time since their deaths. A lot more of them found some clarity after that and those that hadn’t were forced farther out. No one was interested in returning to that state of mindlessness.

“Where were you before?” Vanya asked, “before the possession?”

Seven tensed, looking over sharply to see if there was any malice in the question, but she only found a deep exhaustion. She had been sure she knew? How could she not?

“I was where I thought I belonged.” Seven murmured, “Under the Academy in the bunker.”

Vanya straightened, “What, why?”

Seven sighed, kicking her feet uselessly over the wood chips, “I woke up there and I just knew I should stay. I thought it would keep me from hurting anyone else.”

It wasn’t just that. Time didn’t mean much to the dead, but it worked in both ways. The time she’d spent in that pitch dark room had felt like a week and also an eternity. It hurt. It hurt so much but in a way her addled mind thought she deserved. Maybe she  _ still _ thought she deserved it. 

“I would have stayed there forever if you hadn’t possessed Klaus, it drew me in with you. So thank you for that.” Whole for the first time in a long time, it was horrible, but also... wonderful. She cut that off quickly, she couldn't let herself linger on that thought.

Vanya snorted, her own memories of the time obviously as complicated as her own.

“We should get back to looking” Seven slid off the swing and blinked as her body drifted visibly in the wind, losing its solidity. The dizziness that accompanied the sensation took a moment to clear. She hadn't realized that much time had passed. This was a problem, they still had several more locations to check. “I can't stay here much longer, I don't have the energy for it. Let me tell you the rest of the locations and you can go look--"

Seven turned and jumped, nearly running into Vanya’s suddenly extended hand. 

“Take it.” Vanya said after a moment, fingers flexing impatiently.

“Why?”

“I’d rather you stick around. It’s easier that way.” Vanya sighed.

The living world was not easy to hold onto for the dead. Their natural state was in a world in-between, a vast nothingness where time passed without them. It took effort to stay here and eventually their grip would slip enough they’d tumble back into the nothing. They could only return after they'd stayed there for some time, regaining their strength to climb out again.

Well, that was how it was for all of them except Vanya. They all knew. Something had happened that rooted her to this world, more specifically to Klaus, and with it came benefits that were cut off from the rest of them. Some had been wildly jealous of this and Vanya would lie if there wasn't a shade of that in herself.

“We’re still one in the same, technically,” She prodded, “You can use my connection to keep you stable.”

Seven shied at that. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do it, it was that she wanted it too much. They had been split unevenly, each holding something vital to the other. Sadness, after all, was just the other side of happiness. Selfishness just a form of self love and confidence, Even before their death Seven didn’t think they had rarely been a full person, not since they were four. Seven had convinced herself she would have to live with her brokenness, she had even made some peace with it, but she didn't know how well that would hold up if the temptation for hope was dangled in her face.

She almost thought for a moment Vanya knew this and this was some new bit of revenge, but again, she looked remarkably clear, if midly annoyed. 

She couldn't accept her help like that, not if Vanya would never be interested in being whole again. She never would, right?

“Are you ever going to tell Klaus about whatever that is?” She asked instead of taking the outstretched hand, making Vanya drop it petulantly. 

“He knows,” She huffed then seemed to think better, “He knows some. Maybe someday, but he has other things to be concerned about. It would distract him.”

Seven frowned, “Why, it seems… nice.” 

“Because,” Vanya rubbed at her temples, “The way he talks about Ben, I think whatever pact we’ve formed, they had as well. Do you want to tell Klaus he was possibly responsible for keeping Ben forcibly tethered here for so long?” 

“Oh.” Seven said, earning Vanya’s nod. 

“If Ben didn’t tell him all that time, he had a good reason not to,” She added, “Now give me your damn hand. I need you.”

Seven stilled, “You need me?”

Vanya looked put out at the admission, but she’d jabbed her arm out regardless, “Yes. You know where these places are and we might have to talk to other people. Like it or not, you’re better at it.”

It was such a small olive branch, but the past had proven Seven didn’t need much convincing.

"...Okay."

***

“Do you feel any different?” 

Matilda scrunched her face in consideration and gave her arms an experimental flap, “What is it supposed to feel like?”

Klaus pitched forward in his chair, burying his head in his folded arms with a whine, “God, I don’t  _ know _ . Try punching the bear.” 

The Librarian looked over at the half burnt teddy bear propped up on an overturned bucket sympathetically. She chose a much gentler approach, reaching an index finger out in an attempt to boop it on the nose but her whole hand passing through. 

“Augh! This  _ is _ possible,” Klaus sighed loudly, leaping up to pace a wide circle around the defunct street, “Or it’s  _ supposed _ to be possible. What the hell am I doing wrong?”

“Sorry,” Matilda consoled, “We could try again?”

“No, It’s alright,” He flopped back onto the chair, pulling the book back open to dangle over his face, “I… I don’t know, I must be missing something. Maybe if daddy dearest wasn’t such a shitty writer… I do  _ not _ recommend this book Mattie. It’s depressing as hell.”

Klaus heard her quiet laugh and felt her drift off, leaving him alone once again to stare up at his father’s slanted handwriting. He’d spent the morning trying to peel every piece of useful information out of the thing, reading it cover to cover, at least where he was mentioned. 

It wasn’t any easier than it had been before. The thing was a trauma minefield, but desperation could make a man do very, very stupid things and he was not only desperate but livid.

There was some woman out there manipulating his kid brother for  _ months _ and he hadn’t noticed. He was a pretty gifted screw-up but this might be his masterpiece. Not only did he not learn a thing from the end of the world, he was actively repeating it, so wrapped up in his own bullshit he hadn’t noticed the ticking bomb under their noses. 

Not again, not fucking again. 

For whatever reason this lady was cautious of him, he didn’t know why, but it probably wasn’t his charming personality. His powers maybe? But that didn’t make complete sense, she didn’t seem to understand them either. Something was missing here and he didn’t have time to chase it down. For now, if she wanted to be scared of him he’d be happy to give her something to be really worried about.

Because he did know a way to help here… purely theoretically. He’d caught it on his first skim throughs of the book, something their father had vaguely mentioned as “full corporeal manifestation” the ability to gift the dead the ability to physically interact with the living. 

It was his only shot. He couldn’t personally help Five, not with that woman’s abilities, but if he could figure out a way to make this work? The problem was, so far, he'd been able to produce a big fat nothing, and the journal didn’t make him feel hopeful either. 

Klaus dangled the pages, shifting further down, seeking out a specific passage even though it was only an exercise in self punishment.

_ ‘I had hoped the one benefit of Six’s death would have been some inspiration for Number Four but apparently his loss will remain a permanent tragedy. Even though I was under the impression Four and Six were close, no advancements have been made. If this didn’t unlock manifestation I fear nothing will. Additionally, Pogo has made me aware of Four’s increasing vices, further hindering his progress. _

_ I am at a crossroads, the only avenues left to me in his training are severe and I am forced to consider he is too fragile to participate. The team cannot survive a third casualty so soon after the last. I become more aware of my failings by the day, despite my best efforts he lacks the steel needed for success. Perhaps I coddled him too much.  _

_ I will cease Number Four’s training regimen for the foreseeable future, hopefully age will gift him the wisdom needed that I could not provide.’ _

The entry was two thirds through the book, when they were sixteen. It was the last thing Reginald wrote about him. 

Klaus flipped through the last sparse pages. Like a twisted countdown, it was just One, Two, and Three left to comment on, then just Two and One, then only One. The emotions and eagerness that Klaus could find on the earlier pages were missing as well, just clinical progress notes until Luther’s accident, then nothing at all after the final moon mission.

Klaus caught sight of the letters peeking out from behind the last page, and was surprised by a maudlin thought. Maybe Vanya’s book had been right, what if he really had just been a sad old man. Maybe trapping Luther on the moon was the only way Reginald knew to keep his last child from abandoning him. The thought felt bitter, too close to sympathy for the devil and Klaus was not in the mood. 

What was Reggie's deal anyway? His odd moods weren’t his only inconsistency. 

All the others had been put through systematic testing, feeling out the edges of their powers, testing extremes. Their entries were filled with theories on possible progression. Klaus’s were different, his notes were about how he wasn’t where he should be yet with a surety that no research backed up, like Reginald just knew what was to come already. He supposed it wasn’t just him, there were tones of it in Five’s entries, a few in Luther’s too but none so sure as Klaus's powers. When they were kids Reginald seemed to always state things like he was the first and last authority needed, Klaus had always attributed his surety of the apocalypse and their powers as an offshoot of that hubris, or maybe some scientific guesswork, but this book made it seem like he truly knew some things before they happened. 

The problem here was that, because he was so sure, Reginald hadn’t felt the need to document any trial an error or even write down everything to come for Klaus. He seemed only interested in the next few steps, only alluding to what was past that. He had a bullet pointed pathway to how manifestation should work, but explanations were thin, so fuck if he really understood it in practice. 

A tiny thought kept buzzing around him, and had been since he thought to start learning his powers again.

He could just ask Reginald directly...

The idea soured his stomach every time, besides, he knew what the old man would say. He had it written down here in his own words, and the old man already had his chance at training him. If he really knew how to do this  _ that _ well, Klaus would have learned when he was a kid. What good would it do now to drag him back from the dead, other than piss everyone off and ruin whatever good progress Vanya had made in the last few months. 

God, he hoped Vanya and Seven were doing alright. He’d thought maybe the two of them having some quality “me” time was a good idea, but he was second guessing everything he did now. 

“Klaus,” 

He jumped at the unfamiliar voice. It belonged to an older man, one of the people who had taken up duties to form a perimeter on the street. He definitely been introduced but for the life of him he could not remember what his name was. Probably would be a bit of a faux pas to ask now, right? 

“Oh hey… Buddy!” He smiled, casting around for the name. It wasn’t fair, they all only had to learn one name and he had to remember all of theirs?

“You’re brother is in the subway.”

Klaus practically tripped over himself to get up, he needed to catch the little shit before he blinked out of existence again. He sprinted across the gap, so much he nearly barrelled into the 14-year-old on his way up the stairs.

“Five, Five, Five!” Klaus latched his hands onto the teen’s arms to keep him from teleporting out and started pulling him back up the stairs onto the street. Five put up a fight more out of exasperation than any real need, grumbling about manhandling him, but Klaus wasn’t going to say a word more until they were far away from all of the recording devices he knew about. He hauled them across the street into the shade of two collapsed buildings just in case the lady got uppity and tried to spy on them from further away. 

“Are you  _ done _ ?” Five snipped as soon as they stopped, yanking his sleeves out of Klaus’s grip. 

“Are you?” Klaus returned petulantly, making eye contact to check if they were clear, “Or are you going to let me help you with your creepy lady stalker problem?”

Five jumped onto his tiptoes to slap a hand over Klaus’s mouth, eyebrows pinched so hard they were trying to fuse together. Klaus did the mature thing and licked his hand. 

“Ew, Christ, what is wrong with you?” Five jerked his hand back to dry it off on a pant leg, “Wait, how did you...”

“A hundred little dead birds told me,” Klaus shrugged, “Relax, there are no listening devices over here. She can’t hear us.”

The look of surprise on Five’s face was entertaining, not often he knew something he didn’t and Klaus was in the business of taking his fun where he could get it. 

“We don’t know that for sure…” 

“Well the beans are already all over the floor if she can, so.” 

Five went to smear a hand down his face before he remembered it was the one Klaus had licked and settled for glaring instead, “At least be vague then.”

“Fine, fine!” Klaus shrugged, grabbing Five’s shoulder again just because he could. If it perhaps just let him know that Five was really there and still alive, that was his own business, “First off, you okay?”

Five seemed taken aback by the question, blinking for a long moment before his mind caught up, shock smoothed over by bravado, “Of course I am.”

He wasn’t. The teenager looked pale, run ragged, like he hadn’t slept in days and honestly maybe that was true. Klaus couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Five asleep, just another red flag he missed. Good job, Past Klaus. Five deserved a better brother.

“I’m working on it.” Five conceded, noticing Klaus’s obvious disbelief. “Look, I can’t stay here very long. We’re supposed to be fighting, remember?”

“Hold on, let me help you.” 

Klaus felt a tenseness leave Five’s shoulder, and for a minute he looked like he wanted nothing more before incredulity coated the weakness again, “How? Do you know what she can do?” He waited for Klaus to nod, “Then you know you can’t help.”

“Hey, there’s—“

“I made this mess,” Five cut him off, “and I have a plan to fix it, one way or another. Just, please, you’re a lot of things Klaus but none of it is suited to this. You can help me by just staying out of her way.”

That scraped across an old wound Klaus had almost forgotten about, it had been a while since he’d been told to stand outside as “look out” just to keep him out of everyone else’s hair. As much as he wanted to prove to him right then that he was capable of something more, he also knew he had nothing to show. Unless...

“Look, I need to go so she doesn’t catch on—“ 

“Nuh-uh mister,” Klaus held up a warning finger, “Stay right there.”

He scampered quickly back to where he’d been sitting before, having to reach under the lounger for where he’d kicked the book in his haste, and flipped quickly through the pages. Five, terminally curious, wandered over behind him. 

“What is… is that Dad’s Journal?”

“Ssh!” Klaus waved at him, going back to the earlier half of the book where he knew he saw them. A whole batch of pages right around age 11. Without any ceremony whatsoever Klaus ripped all six pages out, folded them in half, and held them close to his chest. 

“I will give you these pages IF you tell me when this meeting is happening.”

Five somehow managed to look mostly unimpressed, but the curious little glint in his eyes gave him away, “Why, what are they?”

Klaus smirked, “Dad’s notes on time travel. Meeting info, please.” 

Five went from surprise to irritation with amazing speed, “I don’t have time for games like this, Klaus.”

“This is not a game to me.” 

“I could easily just take it from you,” Five ground out, eyes looking greedily at the papers then over to the book, “Is there anything else in there?”

Klaus sidestepped between him and the book, not that it would do much good, but his point was made, “I need the rest of it. You have your plan, I’m working on mine. Stop being an asshole and let me help you.”

He held the papers out, the edges catching the wind enticingly. Five was right after all, his powers made him a nimble little thing. If there was something he wanted there weren't many who could stop him. Klaus just had to hope he would have some sense, as much of a stretch as that was in their family. 

Five looked sternly at him, then the papers, “You can’t be there. She won’t show up if you’re there.”

“I know.”

The teen tugged the paper out of Klaus’s hand gently, looking conflicted already.

“I’m going to fix this.” Five said, “She’s offered me a deal that could save our family. If I can’t figure this out, I’m going to take it.” 

Klaus tensed, “and what does she get in return?”

Five didn't answer, all he said before he stepped back into the liquid blue light was: “Tomorrow, 6pm. At the Academy.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you sosososo much everyone. This section was HARD to write and life is kinda hairy otherwise too right now. Your comments and kudos literally made this chapter happen, I was super frustrated at a couple parts and I had to keep ducking to comments to reassure myself that people actually like this. Brains are mean sometime like that :D You're lovely! 
> 
> The next chapter closes out what I consider arc 2 of 3 in this fic. After that, look forward to a bit of a timeskip in-story, and perhaps a bit of a extra time needed from me so I can get all my ducks in a row for that whole next arc.
> 
> See you in (hopefully) a few days with the rest of this chapter!


	16. Year 1, 26 days Part 2

The Handler only waited for the ink to dry before she folded the paper back into her coat pocket, looking like the cat who caught the canary. 

“Satisfied?” Five said, making himself sound bored. 

“So impatient, you literally have all the time in the world now.” She laughed, but she was reaching into her other pocket at the same time, hand coming out with something that shined in the evening sunlight. A metal disc, textured, just slightly larger than her palm. She tossed it in a gentle arc, trusting him to catch it. 

It was much heavier than he could have guessed. The texture proved to be etchings, wires, and small diodes, all crammed onto the surface in a graceful pattern. It reminded Five of the few times he’d been able to see what Grace looked like under her synthetic skin, some unfathomable technology beyond everything else around them.

“What is it?” Five asked, fascinated. 

“It’s what I promised, a way out of here.” She seemed pleased by his interest and gestured to her own briefcase, “That's what is at the core of these, the thing that makes it tick. Most of the bulk of these are from energy storage and the mechanisms to change time and location. You will need neither.”

Five turned the disk around between his fingers. Looking through the center, his view of the world warped and flexed slightly, as if it were underwater when there was nothing visibly there. 

“We have set it to a very nice training facility in the 1930s where you will receive your orientation, my tech team assures me you will only need to give it a kickstart with your abilities and it will guide you where you need to go.”

He looked up sharply, then down at her briefcase, “I thought—”

“That I’d give you one of  _ these _ ?” The Handler laughed, “Oh no, no. I’m not an idiot. We both know that would be too much of a temptation, you’d let that heart of yours get in your way again. Besides, you have to leave here of your own power, those are the rules.”

Five prided himself in his adaptability. He had to or he would have embedded himself in a wall years ago. He liked to think he did his best work under pressure anyway, though his father had criticized him for that. Five hadn’t understood why at the time. He’d thought it was just Reginald needing to feel superior, to always find something to critique, but in hindsight there was more credence to it than he’d ever like to admit.

Because perhaps he enjoyed the improvisation too much, leaned on his high success rate to justify under-preparing for a situation. Sure, it gave him a great deal of flexibility, but in moments like this sometimes it really hit him like a ton of bricks. 

Now, instead of some grand eureka moment, he found himself staring down the barrel of his Plan B. Not only his less preferred and completely untested plan, but one that was now twice as dangerous. 

Fuckit. 

Five looked down idly at the technological masterpiece in his hand, tossing it up and down lightly into the air, feeling the weight. 

“And what rules are those?” 

She watched the ring bounce with a quirked eyebrow, “Important ones, I'll tell you when you’re older.”

Five pitched the device higher, once, twice, “I guess I’ll look forward to it,” the third time it slapped back into his palm Five wound it back and pitched it directly at the Handler’s face. He had only a sliver of a second to appreciate her surprised expression before he let himself tip forward into the strangely golden light of his portal and into the hazy darkness beyond. 

***

While his larger time travel equation had ground to a halt in the last month Five certainly hadn’t stopped working on an escape route from the Handler. As a matter of fact he’d worked on it directly under her nose more than once, after he’d experimented to make sure she actually didn’t understand the math in front of her. 

The greater problem of at-will accurate time travel was beyond him for the moment, but teleporting  _ inside _ of stopped time, well, that was a theoretically easier problem to solve, more or less. It wasn’t in any way easy of course, it was actually just on the edge of impossibility. The rules of his ability meant there could only be one of him per every moment in time and since time didn’t technically  _ move _ in this little bubble the Handler created, teleportation shouldn’t even be possible for him, his location was locked in that place in that moment. 

So theoretically, he had to create a pocket of moving time  _ inside _ the stopped time, just big enough for him to move through. 

So… easy enough.

It stretched his skills to nearly nothing, and bitterly he noted it may not have been possible at all without the few pages of Reginald’s journal he’d been given. What he’d created was completely untested, bare math and instinct, and he had to do it successfully,  _ twice _ .

And here was the harder part. 

Five leapt through the portal and then, against every instinct in him, turned and watched it simply close behind him, leaving him in the dark in between. He had to make a new rift from within the old one, which meant he had to stay here longer than he’d ever been before. 

To call it dark would be inaccurate, it was pure nothingness, the ineffable dark matter that held the universe together. The void stretched all around him, the curious sensation of no sensation at all distracting him as he tried to pull the energy together to form the next portal tuned to the extremely small window he needed. 

He was almost done when he felt it, something  _ uncoiling _ in the void around him. Aware of his presence and curious. Moving. 

He slammed open the next gate forcing him back into the world right behind the Handler. 

Looking back, he could watch the Handler move in hyper slow motion for a moment as his own foot disappeared into a twisted portal he’d long since passed through. Time itself shook, the primal forces of the universe stuttering to reconcile the conflicting inputs. This was where things could get explosive and that wasn’t something Five wanted to be near enough to witness.

He scrambled up onto his feet, the thick layer of dust and ash on polished marble not helping him in the slightest as he crossed the few feet to where the briefcase. As soon as the tips of his fingers touched the leather surface he was back in action. Not wasting a second of whatever warped time he had at his disposal, he tamped down on his growing fear and pulled the next set of gates open. 

He didn’t even set proper coordinates, he just pushed his range as far as his dwindling energy supply could take him. Willing himself across town or just  _ away _ . Because simply running from her wouldn’t be enough.

The void welcomed him, and so did the gargantuan thing in it. Gargantuan was inadequate, it was the size of worlds, its presence oppressive. It had no eyes but it watched him. 

The portal behind him closed too slowly. His mind was a wash of dizziness, clumsy, and hampered by the briefcase he still clutched in one hand, he was left with nothing to do but look up at it for a moment. Five never thought he’d find the thing that broke his terminal curiosity, but here it was. 

_ “ _ **_Tiny thing.”_ ** It spoke, the portal behind him was still the size of a dinner plate, shrinking slower,  **_“Fragile thing.”_ **

“...Nope.” Five decided not to wait and pushed every bit of power he could into opening the next gate, and scrunched to fit through the too tiny rift, hands burning from the effort. 

When he exited the other side he was distantly aware of a muted explosion somewhere away, though from where he couldn’t say. His head was consumed by a migraine, his ears ringing incessantly, he’d come out of the other side with all or most of his limbs at least, though he’d have to check to be sure. For now he just needed a moment to collect himself. 

What he knew for sure now was that he was wonderfully, blessedly outside of the time stop. He could feel the wind against his clammy skin, hear the small sounds of a world in motion. He couldn’t quite get his eyes open yet, every attempt at letting any light in making pain shoot down to his toes. 

His weakness forced him to an inconvenient standstill, but he couldn't wait for long. He needed to move, he needed to hide his bargaining chip, and he needed to get Klaus. She’d find him, and he wanted her to, but not until he had put everything in place.

While he worked his way up to dealing with sunlight, he used his free arm to get his bearings, He felt brittle grass and cobblestone under his fingers as he cast in a wide arc, catching the edge of a stone corner. A building or pillar maybe. He worked up to his knees, reaching up on the stone to help himself up when his fingers ran across a plaque. 

He froze, recognizing something familiar he forced his eyes open to see it. 

_ Ben Hargreeves. May the darkness within you find peace in the light. _

Shit. Five forced his eyes to adjust and looked around at the rubble surrounding what had once been the Academy’s courtyard, a half buried bronze statue of his dead brother a few feet away. Shit shit shit. He’d barely travelled at all. 

He didn’t have time to get fully to his feet before he felt an arm wrap tightly around his neck and yank him up, the handle of the briefcase slipping from his fingers. Then, of course, the unmistakable feeling of time grinding to a halt swallowed him again.

God fucking damnit. 

“My, my, Five. That was actually impressive for a moment!” He heard the Handler’s words from across the courtyard, outside of his view. 

A long creative response came to mind, but the bulky arm around his neck cut off any possibility of it coming to fruition. He had been pulled upright against someone’s body, bowed back, toes just barely contacting the floor, and he had to use his hands exclusively to keep himself from getting choked out. His strength was nearly nonexistent, but he writhed around in the grip anyway. 

This wasn’t the Handler, the arm was covered in a thick black canvas tactical jacket, the person bulkier by far. Five tipped his head back to see the edge of a red gas mask over the person’s face. Another matching figure joined them, casually circling them to pick up the briefcase from where it laid, tipped over on the ground. Five tried to kick him just out of spite, making contact with the edge of his mask, though there was no strength behind it.

He got some pleasure out of seeing the goon jump, at least. 

The Handler entered his view, keeping carefully out of kicking distance. She looked far less pristine than she usually did. Her hat was missing, dress scuffed, the careful styling of her hair mussed on one side, a few burns and scrapes visible, if superficial.

"It would be in your best interest to calm down, Five." She said, remarkably magnanimous for someone who just had time literally blow up in their face. 

Five, currently a ball of spite and adrenaline, did not feel like calming down. So instead, he looped his feet behind the back of his captor’s knee, pitched his weight forward, and yanked, causing both of them to pitch forward. From there it was remarkably easy to control the fall so the man’s visor crashed directly into the corner of Ben’s memorial. The sound of tempered glass smashing and the squawk of the man’s yell was sweet, especially when his grip slackened enough to let Five extricate himself.

Five skidded away, putting space between himself and the three Commission members. 

The Handler nudged the guard to her left and pointed, as if he’d just performed a neat trick in a circus. Five stalled, trying to mask the raspy breaths his lungs were demanding, standing low and ready to move. He was exhausted in every sense but she didn’t need to know that. He didn’t have another rift in him, not in stopped time. His mind was even sluggish to participate. 

He looked at the woman across from him, trying to glean something there, but it was only more confusing. He expected her to be angry or betrayed, and perhaps she was, he had never managed to read her with any accuracy, but he could swear now that she was… happy. Giddy even. 

The guard staggered back up to his feet, a gap in the mirrored plexiglass showing a bloody broken nose underneath. Five smirked at him, just to get a sharp little gasp of fear out of the man. 

“As amusing as this all is, this is not a good way to start a new working relationship.” The Handler chided, she pulled the ring out of her pocket again and tossed it across the gap to land at his feet. “Time to get going then.”

He didn’t move to pick it up, he just needed a second to think, to rescue this situation. Maybe if he could just get her to drop the stopped time… He opened his mouth to stall, but the Handler shook her head. 

“You signed the contract Number Five,” She reminded, “I’m being kind here, we will still uphold our half of the bargain, but we will force you to do yours if necessary. We take our contracts  _ very _ seriously.”

The two enforcers started forward, Mr. Smashed Face a little more hesitantly than the other. Five shifted his weight. He could take them maybe, even without his powers, he could run, maybe he could even get past her, but with nothing to show for it? Still trapped, and now with the Commission breathing down his neck? That was no escape. 

He could take the offer?

He could, but for real this time. Some good was better than no good. He had been so close to taking it before. Before… god, it would be easier to think if his ears weren’t ringing so loud. 

“What…  _ is _ that?” The Handler looked around, a gloved knuckle trying to clear her ear. The two guards flanking her seemed to notice it as well, shifting to chase the noise. 

In the space of a blink, something changed. One second the guard on the left, still holding the briefcase, was standing there and then he seemed to be tugged backward at his feet, falling flat on his face. All of them stared at the empty air in confusion while the man wheezed, obviously winded. Then just as suddenly, he was dragged screaming back towards the ruins. 

He tried to fight back against it, digging his gloves into the stones and dry grass but it only succeeded in kicking up clouds of dust that hung frozen in the time-stopped air, obscuring him as he was pulled farther back, his form disappearing into the shadow of the south building.

Then he stopped screaming entirely. 

A long silence filled the courtyard, everyone tense. Five’s mind filled unbidden with the images of that nightmare thing in the void, how he hadn’t quite let the gates close. What if he’d let it through? What if—

A figure strode through the hanging clouds of dust, completely displacing his fears with new ones. It was glowing blue-white, the loud ringing increasing in volume with each of its steps until it was nearly unbearable. The dust parted around them.

“Vanya?” The name slipped out of Five before he could stop it. 

She was changed, so changed, even from the image he’d stared at on the back of her book. She was semi-transparent, warm dark brown eyes replaced with unsettling blue ones, her clothes and hair floating around her like she was underwater, her very skin emitting light. She was wonderful and terrifying and walking directly for the Handler with murder in her eyes. 

The Handler who finally had the good sense to look shocked. 

The woman opened her mouth, god knew what good she thought that would do, and Vanya didn’t give them a chance to find out. In a second Vanya was directly in front of the other woman, shoving her back bodily into the remaining brick wall around the courtyard, an invisible force pinning her there. Vanya reached out with a hand, clamping it around the older woman’s wrist, the contact sizzling on her long glove. 

“That’s enough of your tricks.” Vanya smiled, utterly terrifying, and squeezed, her hand turning white hot. Five could just see a small gold watch resting in Vanya’s grip, only because it started sparking in large blue and gold arcs of energy. The force increased until finally, like reality cracking, Five heard a sharp explosion, and time flooded back into motion.

When the smoke cleared, The Handler was on her knees against the wall, remarkably silent for the state she was in, her sleeve shredded up to her bicep, her arm pressed to her middle, slick with dark blood. 

Vanya stood over her, all in white, untouched, somehow towering over the woman, radiating the burning hate of a thousand suns. 

“Give me one reason you should live.” Vanya said, like a holy judge. 

The Handler smiled up at her, “Do whatever you want. It changes nothing.”

Vanya looked down at the woman, puzzled, her hands twitched as if she was restraining herself. 

“Wait,” Five called, finding his voice again, “We need her.”

She turned, looking at him for the first time, those unnatural eyes focusing on him. He supposed he should be scared, but instead he just felt hollowed out. He couldn’t feel anything now, not until he could prove this was real. He couldn’t survive if it wasn’t. 

It almost looked like she didn’t recognize him, that tense anger still holding strong, like she didn’t care about his opinion. Angry that he’d stopped her from something she wanted. 

Five stilled under that gaze, instincts getting him ready to bolt, and that was what did it. 

Vanya blinked, the constant ringing dimming down to nearly nothing, her shoulders sinking. Then there she was, his sister.

“Hey, Vanya.”

***

Vanya had forgotten what her powers in the living world felt like. Like completeness, like  _ righteousness _ , a particularly potent feeling standing over the hunched form of the Handler. A woman seeking to use them, to turn them against each other. With time restored the sounds of the world returned, the shush of wind, creaking of settling rubble, all asking her to resolve this right here and compact this pathetic being down into her component parts like she deserved. 

She was almost lost in it again. The Hargreeves Way: to repeat the same idiotic mistakes over and over. But she couldn’t stand someone looking at her like that again, especially not Five. She’d have to thank him later.

Inch by inch, she let the hatred fall to the wayside, for the moment. There were better things to do right then. 

“Hey, Five.” She returned, smiling at the beautiful, stupid kid.

The other lackey with the smashed face mask made the unfortunate decision to make a move for his handgun but in a flash of blue light that problem was over. Five landed on top of him, pinning him to the ground with a knee to his unprotected neck.

“Well, that went better than expected.” Klaus called as he rounded the corner. He hopped over the downed figure of the other guard and scooped the briefcase up. His other hand was currently occupied by Seven’s tiny glowing hand in his, channeling his power through her into Vanya.

It was the only way they could figure out how to get around the time stop. He needed to be near a ghost to manifest them, but couldn’t trigger his powers in stopped time, if she’d even show up. What they did have, conveniently enough, was a ghost who could technically be in two places at once. 

“How was the trip?” Vanya asked, but meaning something else. She could see his shortness of breath from here, the shakiness of his fingers. They’d manage this much by the skin of their teeth, but they hadn’t had the time to figure out its limits. 

His laugh was pure adrenaline, “Oh, about 50/50. How’d the meeting go, Five?”

“Perfectly, not a hitch.” Five returned, so it seemed like all of them felt like lying today.

The teenager looked up from where he was trussing up the miserable guard with his own handcuffs, eyes catching on Seven with an obvious stutter. Vanya couldn’t blame him, one sister’s ghost showing up was one thing, two of that same sister was a harsher adjustment. 

Then the Handler did something very stupid.

“This is all very touching,” She said, voice remarkably steady despite the mangled remains of her arm. She’d slipped off the belt of her coat and cinched it around her upper arm without them noticing. She smiled. “I’d clap but, well...”

“Quiet.” Vanya hissed down at her, her anger coming back in a blink. Even Seven looked like she agreed and nothing good happened when the two of them were united in their hatred. 

The woman was completely unphased, looking past her to Five, “Are you sure this is how you want this to go, Five? You willing to risk the arrangement we made?”

To the average person, Five seemed calm and composed, but they could all see the flicker of a glance to the shining metal disk on the ground.

“What arrangement? You know I almost fell for it too, but then I found out the deal was never really there, was it?” He said slowly, stepping over the guard to stare her down, coming up right next to Vanya, “You promised to save  _ all _ of them, but you can’t can you? Not if you want your precious apocalypse. You could never save Vanya, you need her to end the world.” 

She froze, panic flushing out all the anger in her veins. He knew. He knew, he knew. How did he know? She snapped a look over at him but he only granted her the smallest of glances. 

“Five out of six saved isn’t a bad outcome. You would have understood in time.” The Handler sighed, “Are you really going to turn down a sure thing? A guaranteed happy life for all of them on the chance of saving one girl who killed  _ billions _ of people?”

Through the numbness of her shock Vanya found she actually agreed. If she could in any way trust this woman, which she certainly didn’t, she would have taken it. She certainly wouldn’t fault Five for doing so, even now, and she was half preparing herself for that inevitability. 

What would happen if he did? Would she be left here alone, her own personal hell?

“ _ No _ .” Five snapped, as angry as she’d ever heard him, “I’m not only going to save her, but I’m going to fix all of this. Don’t you get it? You’re trapped here with us now and you’re going to tell us everything we want to know. You’re not getting your goddamned end of the world.”

The Handler rolled a look up to Vanya, a fond smile on her face tempered with obvious sarcasm, “Ah, youth. I remember that optimism.” 

“Big words from someone with one hand and no way outta here,” Klaus sniped, mockingly jangling the briefcase in one glowing hand. She didn’t even feign her typical smile at Klaus, just framing him with a withering look.

“There are worse things I can do that even you couldn’t come back from.”

Klaus gasped dramatically, making a show of looking faint, “Oh no! Threats! Though I hope you aren’t depending on any of the little tricks and traps you left all around the city, or say, the tracker you very rudely left in the bottom of our shoes. We found those already.” He winced on her behalf, “Sorry about that.”

The Handler snorted as if they’d found nothing. Vanya couldn’t have that. 

“Sixth and Park, The Warrens, Argyle Library, that’s just a few.” She listed, just to watch the cockiness drain from the woman. “Trying to kill us slowly.”

Vanya and Seven’s expedition the day before hadn’t been entirely fruitless, once they understood what they were looking for. It was so subtle. The Handler had set up the first domino in a chain of events meant to look like natural disasters or bad luck. Structures weakend, sabotaged water mains, tons of supplies intentionally burnt away. Some traps had sprung already, but some of the worst seemed to be waiting. Including one a dead city engineer told them looked like it was meant to bury them alive in their own home. 

“Here’s the thing,” Klaus said airily, “There are about 7 billion new friends of mine who would like a word with you right now. They’ve been watching you for months and they see everything. So yeah, I dare you,  _ try it _ .”

The glow on his hands grew, licking up his forearms like blue fire, and the courtyard flooded with the transparent blue shapes of hundreds of souls clustered around them. A row of her gruesome victims were nearly in grabbing distance, angry and eager. It was enough to drop the confidence off her face for a flicker of second.

Five turned a circle around, his exhaustion turning to a wide smirk, he whipped back around to the woman, “You’re going to tell us  _ everything _ . The truth, this time.”

“Hurry up before we get bored of you.” Vanya purred, making sure the woman’s attention was on her before Klaus let the ghosts drop back into invisibility. No doubt that stunt had cost him.

“Here’s what I don’t get!” Klaus said, shaking off the aftereffects of his exertion, “Why go to that much effort? Why the roundabout way? There are easier ways to kill us.”

“Believe me, I would have preferred to, but those are the rules,” She said condescendingly, “Did she not tell you? Priceless.”

Klaus blinked, but Five stepped back in hotly, “No more games. You’re running out of time, Handler.”

Well and truly trapped, she looked up at them with a haughtiness she couldn’t back up.

“You want to know everything? Let me enlighten you. I’ve heard tales of people like you, miracle children that appear one day. It’s happened before, it will happen again. You always appear  _ right _ before the end of that world. You want to know why? Hm?” She leaned in over her bent arm, drawing in their attention. 

It was the most perfect bait. They did want to know, they’d always wanted to know. The woman’s red lips stretched in an almost consoling smile.

“Because you cause it. You always cause it. You kids are the apocalypse. This is what you’re meant to do. Maybe you’ll delay it by a few days, a month, a year if you’re lucky, but you’re fighting against your very nature.”

Vanya stepped back without meaning to, the force of the statement hitting her. The others were in much the same state. The Handler laughed at their stunned horror, like they were the world’s biggest joke. Maybe they were.

“I said no lies.” Five hissed.

“On my honor, it’s the truth! All of you have the capacity, haven’t you felt it? Something dark in you?” She crooned. “You know what, while I’m being generous, here’s another freebie.  _ That briefcase is not my device _ .”

Vanya jolted back to look at her too late. The Handler’s remaining two functioning fingers had worked open the zip on the long black glove of her other hand, revealing loops of delicate metal wire around the flesh of her arm. On the inside flat of her wrist sat a disk, not unlike the one she’d given Five earlier, surrounded by a dozen tiny blue capsules of glowing blue liquid. 

Vanya had time enough to see the shine of the woman’s teeth before a bloody thumb flicked a switch, then there was nothing there to grab but air. The two guards disappearing with her. 

***

On inspection, the briefcase only contained two bricks and a handwritten note on Commission letterhead.

_ ‘The deal is off, but as a parting gift I will leave you with your one-way device. Feel free to use it if you care to renegotiate, though the terms will be far less favorable. - H’ _

“You can let go now,” Vanya prodded Klaus. He was paler than usual, his curls starting to stick to his forehead with sweat. They didn’t know how long he could safely hold her there, hell they’d only worked it out semi-reliably a few hours before, skipping any attempt at sleep.

“Nah. I think I’m good for a little bit longer,” Klaus tipped his head towards Five pointedly.

He was only a few feet away, placidly ripping the Handler’s note into microscopic shreds. He hadn’t said a word since her exit. 

Vanya looked down at Seven, her own caution reflected back at her on the smaller face, but she nodded anyway and let go of Klaus’s hand. The overpowering glow of them dimmed to a soft blue light and the two went over.

“Are you okay?” Seven asked, barely stopping herself from reaching out to touch Five’s arm. He startled anyway, losing the last bits of paper into the wind.

“Of course.” He scoffed, making both of them sigh. When will the members of their family learn to ask for help. “There’s two of you?”

Vanya shrugged, “Oh, so I guess you don’t know everything then.” Her jibe was so soft around the edges it barely qualified as one, and Five huffed out a laugh. “It’s a long story.”

“No… no, I don’t know everything.” He murmured, watching the pieces of paper get caught in the dead grass and stonework around them. 

“How long have you known about us? About what we did.” Seven asked. 

“Weeks,” He shrugged, hazarding a look at Klaus too, “Between the gaps in what you would tell me and what the Handler left out, I had a theory and, well... When I couldn’t get any answers I went looking for them myself.”

Klaus looked up bashfully from where he’d hopped up on top of Ben’s memorial, and was very interested in his glowing fingernails, “Yeah… sorry about that.”

“We made him,” Seven jumped in, even as Klaus scoffed at her trying to protect him. He’d been evasive before Vanya had come into the picture, but she’d definitely prolonged it. 

“I understand, I think. I don’t know exactly what happened but I can’t even imagine…” He shook himself out of that line of thought, “That was your body then, the one I buried with the others?”

“Yes.” Vanya said shortly, with Seven adding, “Thank you for that.” 

“Are they—” The words stuck in Five’s throat and he frowned, collecting himself before he tried again, “Are any of the others here too?”

Klaus stilled, “No. They’ve been gone for a long time.”

“Probably good.” Five nodded, the icy exterior creeping back up onto his face. It hurt to see, and Vanya cast around for something, anything to delay it. 

“You said you went looking for answers,” She asked, “Where did you go?”

“Here, actually,” He said, seeming grateful for something else to talk about, “I thought I’d find notes or something but well… I should just show you.”

***

To Vanya’s growing displeasure, Five lead them back through the ruins of the Academy and down into the open elevator shaft. 

As tired as they were, it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to climb four stories down a rickety service ladder, but none of them felt the need to start being smart now. The shaft itself smelled like oil and mildew. It was open to the sky and so it had gathered a considerable pool, quietly lapping against the wreckage of the car at the bottom. 

By Vanya’s insistence, Klaus had let them go to make the climb down. She refused to be the reason he fainted and fell down an elevator shaft. She assured them she would join them as soon as they reached the bottom. She intended to but instead she found herself frozen at the top, watching the boys descend on their own. 

The idea of going down was almost too much. Her mind raced with conspiracies, like this was all a trick to lock her back up. She couldn’t survive that, she wouldn’t allow that.

“We can do this.” Seven’s quiet voice broke through her kaleidoscope mind, her tiny fingers wiggling their way into hand. The smaller ghost shook slightly, as discomfited by the surroundings as she was, but her face was resolute.

Vanya wrapped the hand up in hers, just for something to hold onto, “I thought I was the brave one.”

Seven smiled up at her, “I don’t think we were ever any one thing. Come on, I think I know what Five wants to show us. You’ll want to see.”

With a thought they were down on the landing of the fourth sub-basement, appearing at their side as Five scared up a heavy flashlight and ushered them in further. Her non existent heart beat faster at the sight of the long concrete corridor stretching in front of them, pitch black except for Five’s light. Looking to her left, she found Klaus in a similar state.

She’d noticed his problem with enclosed, dark spaces before, used it against him on more than one occasion in of a flight of vindictiveness. It was a fear they shared but she’d never asked why. Vanya looked over at Seven, gripping the hand that kept her rooted, and saw agreement in her eyes.

“Klaus,” She said quietly, but he jumped anyway, blinking over at her in the dim light, “Do you think you could bring us back for a while?”

His gaze flickered down the dark hallway and back up the ladder as if he was waiting for the top to close up and trap them in. 

“Is everything okay?” Five called back, shining the light back at them, it was enough to jostle Klaus back into motion.

“Yeah it’s just— hold on,” He turned to Vanya, “Sure, but why…”

Even as he questioned it he was already getting to work. It was hard to describe what he did, perhaps it was easiest to say he was opening the door into the living world and pulling her through. Every time it felt like learning to breathe again, sensation in her limbs coming back in pins and jabs. 

She didn’t waste any more time, as soon as the blue light diffused through her she slapped her hand into his and held on. 

Touching while incorporeal was still too risky, they hadn’t been able to figure out why, maybe it was because her ghost was unstable, but by accident they’d discovered that touching while corporeal was a different story. 

Klaus looked down at the connection with a shaky laugh, gratitude melting his tension, “Oh. Oh… thanks.”

They followed Five, a claustrophobic three person mess of a chain. 

“I found her at the bottom of the elevator shaft,” Five called back without preamble as they reached an antechamber, just a cement room with a nonfunctional hanging bulb, a couple bookshelves, two chairs, and a table. 

Vanya felt Seven tense before Five hung his flashlight from a hook on the ceiling, illuminating the room. 

Grace laid on the table, or what was left of her. Most of her lower half was missing. Her golden hair was limp and free of style, face blotchy, dust clogged in her eyelashes, what was left of her dress was brown and stained. Most of the damage was under a tastefully placed sheet, as if Five hadn’t wanted to see it either. 

Even given all that, the blue glow of the ghosts made her look angelic. The permanent makeup on her synthetic skin made her looking lifelike under the dust, like she could jump awake at any moment. 

“God,” Klaus reached out with his free hand, his fingers touching Grace’s on the table, finding it frozen still. “What happened to her?”

“I think she was in the elevator when the house collapsed,” Five rounded to the side of the table next to her head, “I pulled her out.”

“Is she…” Klaus tried, searching for the word. Alive? Functional?

Five parted her hair behind her ear, showing bare circuitry underneath, a long mismatched wire twisted into the components, connecting her to a car battery by their feet. “She’s powered down for now, but her charging port is corroding,” Five pointed to the connection where the metal was turning green and black. “It’s going to snap soon, I don’t know when, but the more power I run through here the faster it will go and I have no idea how to fix it. I was lucky to find her when I did.”

What could you possibly say to that? Your robot surrogate mother who you had assumed dead wasn’t, but was in the process of doing so? Just another casualty but a slower one.

“We talked for a while a couple weeks back, after I got her running, She told me… most of it, the fight at the house, about your powers Vanya, how they went after you.” He said, a remarkable softness in his tone for a person who repeatedly compared the robot to an intelligent blender. Vanya didn’t know if it was loneliness or some other change that brought that empathy to life in him. 

“I think she’d want to see you.” He said, “Both of you.” 

Vanya recoiled at the thought, but Seven said the actual words, “But wouldn’t that hurt her?”

“Likely, but it’s what she’d want.” 

“Do it,” Klaus said, squeezing Vanya’s hand. 

Five nodded, reaching behind her ear again to press and hold a button. Grace’s eyes fluttered open, a LED light chasing a circle around one iris as she rolled through her startup procedures, until awareness came to her eyes. She saw Five first, her face brightening. 

“Hello dear, It’s so good to see you aga-again,” Her brow furrowed lightly, “Five, have you eaten today? You-you look pale.” Her speech skipped and, when she lifted her arm to attempt to check Five, the broken gears ground and crunched audibly.

“Hello Grace,” Five smiled without his eyes, guiding her arm back away from him, “I brought you someone.”

She shifted, only able to move her neck, catching sight of Klaus, “Oh, what a wonderful surprise, my little artist, are you home for the d-day-day, Klaus? I should cook your favorite for dinner tonight.”

Klaus wiggled his fingers at her, looking sappy, “Hi, Mom, you look wonderful today.”

“You flatterer,” She huffed brightly, wrestling the mechanics of her arm around to attempt to straighten his hair to no success, “I do wish you’d come home-ome more often, I worry about you out there.”

Klaus’s hand tensed around hers, “I… I’ll try. Promise.” 

“And Vanya, dear, you’re glowing, and there’s two of you, how fun!” She laughed, the sound jarring in the dark room. “Well this is a special occasion, so many of my children home. I should… goodness I seem to be stuck.” 

It only then seemed to occur to her to check her surroundings, blue eyes scanning the dark concrete room, the hanging flashlight. Her processing was visible, head ticking to the side repeatedly for a moment before something dimmed in her expression.

“Oh. Oh that’s right.” She blinked, obviously casting her databanks for some appropriate response to the end of the world and coming up with nothing. It seemed to Vanya like the most human response she’d ever seen from her. 

“Grace, do you remember what we were talking about last time?” Five prodded, “What you wanted to say?” 

She stilled, pulled out of her loop, her smile dimming to nothing, “I do. I suppose now or never, as they say. I believe—” The words seem stuck, her mouth moving without sound, brows pinching like she was concentrating, the click and whir kicking up.

“You don’t have to.” Seven consoled.

“N-no—I do.“ Grace shook her head, gathering herself as much as she could, “This has gone unsaid too long. I believe-ve I-I-I-I’ve failed you. It was my duty to protect you children and I have f-failed. I knew it the minute I saw the blast… but I think I failed even before that.”

Vanya’s vestigial heart squeezed in her chest, she wanted dearly to run.

“I followed all of my directives, and yet you were still harmed, which means the directives must be flawed. So I have overwritten them.” She nodded resolutely, “We have lied to you, all of you, on so much. We thought we were doing what was best and we were  _ wrong _ . Especially with you, my precious girl. I am so sorry.”

A choked sob surprised her, escaping her throat before she could stop it, Seven turned to bury her face into Vanya’s shoulder, clinging onto each other’s hand. Through the connection flowed feelings so powerful and so pure, too complex to give any one name. The bare light bulb above came to life, the coil burning hot and bright at a worrisome speed.

Grace’s hand extended out to Vanya, the effort grinding, her ring finger twitching uncontrollably. She could only look at it with terror, not because she didn’t want to take it, she did so much, but her mind overlayed it with the Handler’s, the view of the woman’s delicate wrist melting away under her power. So much chaos and damage she’d done with these hands only fifteen minutes before.

“I-I can’t,” Vanya shook, “I might hurt you.”

Grace smiled, “Don’t worry, silly, everything will be alright.”

“Van,” Klaus whispered, lifting their joined hands onto the table, fingers loose enough she could release his whenever she wanted, if she wanted. All four of them had wordlessly huddled on one side of the table, gravitating closer by the minute. Five was on Seven’s other side, leaning into the table, his face half covered by a hand, eyes distant. 

Vanya slowly peeled her hand away and transferred it into Grace’s, the hanging light above burned bright but didn’t burst. She couldn’t do much to control her emotions, but she was doing everything she could to bend the excess energy away from the fragile robot. 

As soon as her fingers made contact her smile softened, “There, that’s my girl. See? You have to trust yourself, dear.”

Tears dripped from her face, pinpricks of blue white light that disappeared before they touched anything. Seven stood on her tip-toes to put her own tiny hand over Vanya’s. 

“I need you to understand, Vanya,” Grace clasped the hands with her functional fingers, “What was done to you was  _ just _ us. Your father, Pogo, and I. Only us. You and your siblings need to stick together, you have all grown so big and brave. I am so p-p-proud.” A large jerk wrenched her head to the left, and Vanya gasped and tried to remove her hand only to have Grace hold it tighter.

“What’s wrong with her, am I hurting her?” Vanya cried. Five blinked out of existence and appeared on the other side, looking at the circuitry behind her ear with a small curse.

“It’s not you, it’s the connection,” He hissed, yanking the wire at the car battery end to try to preserve whatever time they had left. “It’s deteriorating.”

“Vanya,” Grace murmured, squeezing their hands, eyes unfocused as the steady stream of power was cut off, “I always wanted to go see you in concert, it seemed like such an amazing time. I missed you playing for me at the house.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanya said back, sniffling.

“Hush now. Want to know a secret?” Grace smiled, a mischievous glint in her artificial eyes, “I asked Diego to sneak in and record one of your performances. He wasn’t allowed to record, so he hid up in the concert hall’s catwalk. It was lovely, but he got spotted near the end, so I missed the finale.”

Vanya turned her head down into the top of Seven’s head, letting out a sob. 

“I go into the security room and play it every now and then,” She sighed, voice slowing down, eyelids fluttering. She cast a look around at them, smiling at each in turn, “I think I need to rest. Y-y-you three, take c-care of each other.”

“Yes, Mom.” Klaus said, the forced cheerfulness of the tone broken by the crack in his voice. Vanya and Seven nodded, faces still wet.

“That’s my darlings,” The last words out of her mouth slowing down to nothing, her eyelids drifted down, a vacant doll once more.

***

Klaus was slumped down at the mouth of the elevator shaft, back pressed to the wall and legs splayed out in front of him. The last bits of sunlight bounced off the water and broken stained glass at the bottom, creating beautiful shifting patterns in front of them. Green mold climbed the walls, the smell would be overpowering if he had the energy to be bothered by it anymore. 

He was bone tired, too exhausted even for his phobias to make much of a peep. He was only sitting up because Five was tucked next to him, knees drawn up to his chest. The placid mask the teen had put on was not doing a thing to disguise his state. They were beyond that now. 

“Is Vanya here?” Five croaked, eyebrows pinching at the weakness of his own voice.

Klaus rolled his head no against the wall, feeling like it was too heavy to pick up, “Went off with Seven, they’ll be back.”

Five huffed, shifting around anxiously like he had been for the last five minutes. A frog croaked from inside the elevator pond. 

“Thanks.” Klaus said, earning an incredulous look in response. “For letting us speak to Mom one last time.”

It was such a weird feeling, this lump in his chest. She was just… gone. Dead as she could be, her circuitry fried past any of their capabilities to fix. She didn’t go anywhere, there was no ghost, just a presence in his life irrevocably cut off from him. 

Was this what death was like for other people? 

When others died before, it was never a sure thing he could call someone back, but the possibility was always there. More importantly, he knew for sure that they were somewhere, continuing on. Where did AI go when they died? It didn’t seem right that she just ended, trapped in this godforsaken house until her last day.

Grief consumed him, a dull blade in an old wound. He missed his family. 

Klaus missed Diego’s stupid attempts at covering his soft heart. He missed Luther’s starry-eyed need to help people. He missed Allison’s strength and kindness. He missed Ben’s everything. They were somewhere but they were gone to him. He didn’t dare call them back down into this mess, he couldn’t do that to them. 

He drew up a knee so he could bury his face in his elbow, he just wanted this day to be over. 

Five shuffled again, “She was just a robot.”

“You don’t mean that.” 

“Why not? I’m glad Vanya got something out of it. It’s remarkable what a half functioning Artificial Intelligence can piece together.” Five shrugged.

Klaus rolled his head to look over at the teenager only to be met with his best performance of adulthood. Callous and cold, reminding him disturbingly of their father. He didn’t believe it for a second. 

“It’s okay to miss her.”

Five acted as if Klaus had spat on him with that remark, his frown deepening, “Sorry, I don’t.” He didn’t sound sorry, and Klaus didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. He remained understanding, and it seemed to annoy the teenager even more, “Whatever. Not all of us had our entire lives to cozy up to a piece of machinery. Maybe if I hadn’t run away at thirteen she could have made more of an impression on me. Just another side effect of my many bad decisions I’m sure,  _ I’ll take a note _ .”

“Five…”

“You know, while we’re making a list of my shortcomings, why don’t we just add: Worlds worst negotiator. It takes talent to turn an  _ extremely _ good deal into nothing but a brick of useless metal!” Five said, sarcasm pouring out of him with a fragile edge, “I could have taken the deal and worked inside the Commission, let them bring everyone together, and  _ then _ saved Vanya under their nose. Instead, like the supposed genius that I am, incapable of learning a lesson: I decided I knew best,  _ again _ . Now we have  _ nothing _ .”

Klaus shifted, his arms and legs protesting the movement, but he wasn’t about to let this sit. He grabbed Five by the shoulders, ignoring his petulant little protests as he did, “We don’t have nothing.”

The teenager scoffed, “Oh what, are you going to say we have me? That I can figure it out? Have you not noticed what’s happened to every plan I put into action? We have no information, no resources, no escape, we just have my useless brain. It’s  _ impossible _ . We’re all going to die on this empty planet and it’s going to be my fau—“

Klaus had had about enough of that and yanked the tense shoulders in for a hug. He used the last remnants of the strength to keep the protesting teen in his grip, shushing him to drown out the indignant squeaks.

“Five, shut the fuck up,” Klaus said eloquently, waiting until the half-hearted flailing calmed down, “You’re doing so good, you and that big brain of yours needs to calm down. I’d be dead several times over if it weren’t for you. This isn’t easy, it’s never going to be easy, our lives were disasters from the start, but you’re doing  _ so good _ .”

The boy huffed into Klaus’s chest, half smothered, but not committed to a fight anymore. He was in an awkward position, both of them bent into a pile of skinny limbs and angst. 

“If there is anyone in the world who could figure this out it’ll be you, I’d bet anything on that.”

“There’s only two people in this world right now,” Five groused into his shirt.

“See!” Klaus laughed, “Such a smarty, good job!”

Five gave a weak punch to his ribs and he just held on tighter, “Here’s how it is: You’ll figure this out or you won’t. Believe me, I’m not much of an optimist but the way I see it is the absolute worst thing that could ever have happened  _ has already happened _ . It’s only up from here, and if you don’t figure it out, oh well. There are worse people I could be stuck with for the rest of eternity.” Klaus patted him on the back roughly, feeling the tenseness in the muscles underneath. 

“Though,” He continued with a grin, “I have to apologize because that means you are also stuck with me, and I personally  _ am _ the worst person. Have you met me? I am  _ extremely _ annoying. I am 100% getting the better side of the deal here, kid.”

Klaus suspected he should feel insulted by the watery laugh that joke earns him, but it warms his heart anyway. When Five tugs on his grip this time, Klaus gives him some slack to escape, but instead of pulling back, the teenager just rearranged his legs so he was more comfortable and buried his face back in Klaus’s collarbone. 

“I’m not a kid.” He said shakily, the last vestiges of annoyance barely hanging on. The small sniffles a dead giveaway to what was happening here and holy hell did Klaus have to blink rapidly to keep himself from joining him. 

He resituated the boy in his arms, heart bleeding as he tucked his brother safely under his chin. “Yeah, you  _ are _ , Five.” He whispered, pressing his eyes closed, “But that’s okay. Everything is gonna be okay.”

Five slumped in his grip, letting out months of pent up emotion all in one go. Klaus let him, happy to stay there even has his legs went numb, just clinging on until the boy’s tears turned into the slow breathing of sleep. 

***

“You remember the first time we spoke?” Seven asked, the two pieces of a soul standing hand in hand in front of the center of their nightmares. A hulking black steel bunker, completely undisturbed by the end of the world. It seemed smaller than she remembered, but she had only been four years old the last time she’d been there. 

Vanya just nodded, humming her understanding. She’d like to say the split happened exclusively because of the Rumor, but she was cracked even before their Father brought Allison into the room.

She’d been so lonely, so scared. Left alone most of the day, the walls muting any sound. Her only companion had been her reflection in the glass of the door, so she’d talked to it to pass the time, just to hear anything at all. 

Then, one day, her reflection started replying. 

“Would we have taken the pills if he told us why?” Vanya asked the question neither of them knew how to answer. Would a four year old understand the gravity of the situation? She was an obstinate child then, a violent child… no, that wasn’t fair. She was just a child, period. 

What about her resentment? Would it have built up regardless or perhaps even faster than it had the first time? She wanted to say no, that everything would have worked out beautifully, that this one change would have solved all of her issues but that seemed unlikely. 

Who even was she, under all this? The Rumor robbed her of half her mind, every bit of confidence locked away, her own thoughts undermining every achievement. You can’t do well at this test Vanya. You can’t get First Chair. You can’t be interesting enough to have friends. You can’t be loved. You’re too  _ ordinary _ . No one will want you.

What little that was left was smothered under the medication, a lifetime of emotions held back from her, never enthusiastic about anything, never truly sad, never angry enough to defend herself when others walked over her.

Add onto that the realization that some mysterious organization, manipulated the world around her.

“Did we ever have a choice?” Vanya said.

“Not many.” Seven nodded, staring into the glass, the two of them framed perfectly in the darkness. “We did our best.”

“And harmed so many others.” 

Who knew how she would have acted had she been whole. Whoever she had been at four years old when she had been put in this bunker, that girl was only a stranger to her. Now… now she felt like she wanted to meet her. 

The world was over and somehow she was still here. She still had a chance. 

“Why are we like this?” She had no idea who said it, perhaps they both did.

Seven laughed, “I don’t know, we should try to figure it out. Those years of therapy have to be good for something.”

“Together?” 

Vanya blinked, the reflection in the glass going from two to one. A singular set of brown eyes looking back.

“Together.”

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooboy everyone. This section was a doozy. Thank you all for waiting and I hope you enjoyed. This is the end of what I consider the second act of this story, with the third being its last. Expect a bit of a gap here as I get all the ducks in a row.
> 
> Again, your comments were flippin PARAMOUNT here. Thank you a million times for that. This chapter definitely would not have gotten done without it.


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